


Girls Of Science Era

by alvaro84



Series: Madoka Magica semi-linear Alternate Multiverse [2]
Category: Fringe (TV), Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: 2017, Artificial Intelligence, Cortexiphan, Despair Event Horizon, ESP, F/F, Hive Mind, OMG it's 2017 now, Parallel Universes, Parallels, Precognition, Transhumanism, Witches, pocket universes, quantum entanglement, time paradox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-09-27 13:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 81,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10022075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alvaro84/pseuds/alvaro84
Summary: A sequel to Magical Girl Crusade. Her victory has changed the world in more ways than she would have thought. 6 years have passed. The veterans of Walpurgisnacht are the heroes of a new world. Are they happy now? What about the world? [19-shot] [MadoHomu] [AU... okay, AM] [Quite a bit of Rebellion] [Fringe S5 too] [Rated M to be on the safe side] [Nice Walfas cover]





	1. Last Remote

**Author's Note:**

> Still with ZUN titles (some may be strange) and proper version numbers. English chapters start at 0.9 and may exceed 1.0 when they do.
> 
> I originally wrote (the first version of) this chapter on the winter that followed MGC, so it must have been around the border of 2011 and 2012. It took quite long to make a real sequel starting from here, one that's worth posting anywhere. Now that I'm approaching the end with writing the Hungarian version, I started translating the finished chapters too. The whole story turned out quite differently to what I wanted to do in the beginning.
> 
> The girls' 'crusade' against Walpurgis and the Incubators was such a success that it changed the face of the world in the end. I wanted to show the world where knowledge about the Incubators' system is a commonplace, and it's only one of the major problems of humankind living on a slowly decomposing Earth (You mustn't have thought that two 'universes' just collapse into each other just because of a little local flaw, right? It must be self-correcting, ending in a singularity, not much bigger than the Solar system... not that it would make any difference in humanity's future...), but got sidetracked. This (almost) final version concentrates much more on the girls, especially the three of that somehow made me follow them. And it went far beyond the point where I planned to finish it. IMO it changed for the better (or the worse, you'll tell). Science-y stuff is lurking in the dark corners...
> 
> Tags: Sakura Kyouko, Hochfeld Power Station, Rosso Fantasma, guns, night vision, Meuko
> 
> Oh, and the nice Walfas cover: alvaro84 dot deviantart dot com slash art slash GOSE-opening-Walfas-version-474626356

##  **Last Remote**

_v0.9_

[May 2017, Hochfeld, Namibia]

Someone was lying on her belly in the bushes, with binoculars in her hand. A slim, hooded figure, constantly watching the patrolling guards and the watchtowers, not even caring about the flies anymore, only driving away the fattest from her telescope's lens with a twitch. She had been on watch here every day for the last week, studying the guards’ routes and the timing of their shift changes. She was also looking for those paranormal phenomena that locals were mentioning only in whispers in the doorways and ramshackle taverns rarely visited by the police.

Only yellow grass and patches of thorny brushwood grew in the wired area, and nothing moved inside except for the rippling of the hot air. It would have been impossible to go further unnoticed in daylight, but she collected enough information to get inside at night.

She saw a lot during the week she spent here in the bushes, at the edge of the civilization, close to a run-of-the-mill, small, poor African town. One year after the military coup, secretly funded by the Moleli government, the facility before her didn’t officially exist. While it wasn’t particularly hard to get inside the fence she had never seen anyone leaving – except for the lorries carrying supplies that were unloaded outside the building and the jeeps that politicians and high ranking officers used to visit the base. And, of course, the police wagons that always came in the dark.

Some civilians tried to hunt down the antelopes that got caught inside when the barbed wire fence was built – these people stayed inside forever. The guards escorted most of them inside the huge, flat concrete building, while the others were shot down outside and their bodies thrown into the open pits in the savanna. These unmarked graves were surrounded by flies during the day and ghost lights at night and ghastly whining and groans terrorized anyone who dared to approach. The nearly forgotten descendant of the Ovambo shamans came to calm down the dead, but he was scared away by bursts from the guards’ submachine guns.

The scout had heard many interesting things from him, but it wasn’t easy to tell the truth apart from the superstition, especially that the truth she was looking for was far enough from ‘normal’ to look superstition itself. Paranormal experiments seemed to go on in there, but beyond a certain point she couldn’t get a word out of the young shaman.

“You’re Japanese, just like those who enticed my younger sister. If you don’t know, who does?”, he snarled at her. “Moleli and his company called them here to bother the dead with their crazy machines. The last word my sister sent was about a ghost they sealed and made work for them. I’ve been having nightmares since then.”

Then he fell silent and didn’t tell anything else, no matter how many drinks she bought him. But today she would finally learn what had happened to the missing people and why did this shaman blamed her fellow countrymen. The Sun was slowly creeping towards the horizon, gradually turning into a huge, rippling red disc. The guards were waiting for the relief, and so was the scout in the bush. She knew that the night watch seriously lacked discipline.

The growing shadows engulfed the scenery as the Sun finally slid down from the sky. She tardily got up and dusted her clothes.

“Mami, you and your dumb ideas... Should I just try to shout like you taught me, these drunkards would shoot me like a partridge...”

 _Rosso Fantasma._ She didn’t even have to say the name, it was enough to think of the effect. With this she’d get inside and learn how accurate Oriko’s guess had been. The platinum blonde girl saw the future more clearly than the present, but even her hunches of the present could prove useful, especially if they were concerning her own kind.

The electric gate of the building opened. A young girl peeked out, had a careful look around and dashed into the nearby bushes. Her crimson dress and long, red hair fluttered in the wind as she crossing the road, brandishing a spear.

The scout couldn’t understand the shouting coming from the watchtowers, but she saw some guards climbing down the ladders and run toward the building, with guns in their hands.

A second girl in crimson, looking like the first one’s twin sister appeared and began to run towards the piles of debris on the other side. The guards aimed at her yelling and sprayed her with bullets while running. The girl fell over and stopped moving for good. The guards split up. Two ran toward the corpse while the third dashed through the gate to look if there was more of these mysterious girls. At least he tried, but he slammed into the open gate like he hit solid concrete.

“At least I won’t have to take care of this one.”, the spy outside the fence acknowledged. The guards that stayed in the tower broke in shouting again, this time with walkie-talkies in their hands. A siren began to howl, light beams carved yellow circles in the dark blue grass.

Now that she dropped her cloak her shoulder length ruby hair that she wore in a short ponytail was almost glowing in the dark. She got gloves and knee pads out of her backpack and completed her outfit with them. She held back a giggle at the guards’ perplexed gestures as they couldn’t find the girl they shot down, then they beheld three of her, grinning down at them from the roof. She grinned too as she disappeared from human sight.

The electric fence clattered. A few seconds later the barbed wire on the top deformed under some invisible weight, then it returned to normal like nothing happened.

Very soon she was sitting by the wall next to an iron door, watching the dozens of guards very carefully not to touch any one of them. She had to get inside quickly before someone would have a look at the surveillance displays, because her ability could only fool live observers, not the indifferent glass and silicon.

She hoped for someone to open any of the gates or doors to find where those strange escapees came from, but it seemed the inner and outer guard squads were strictly separated. And these guards weren’t even that surprised: they must had seen magical girls before. “One for Oriko!”, she thought.

She was getting weary of the concentration she needed to maintain her invisibility. She was already considering returning to the world outside the fence ashamed, when the iron door next to her slammed open. She slipped through the opening without thinking and started to run along the corridor inside.

There were more doors sideways but they were all locked and she had no time to tinker with her lock picks, so she just kept running forward. She heard shots behind her back and she didn’t care which squad dogged her, it didn’t really matter. Some of the guards probably remembered to look through night vision.

The corridor forked and she sent a few of her illusion bodies to the right while she turned left and kept running. She looked back over her shoulder to see that the guards split up but there was still at least a dozen following her. Behind a bend she found herself in a dead end. She tried a few doors for no avail. The guards were quickly approaching the bend.

Suddenly she heard a voice inside her head.

“ _This way!”_ , it whispered and a door opened silently.

After a brief moment of hesitation she dashed through. The door immediately closed behind her back and she saw locks turning and bolts sliding as she turned around. She was in a laboratory surrounded by displays and various unknown devices.

“Welcome to the Power Station!”, the voice lilted, this time through a speaker. Female voice, probably too old to be a magical girl, the scout guessed. “You’ll have to forgive me for using the comm. Telepathic communication needs a lot of energy and I can’t easily explain more than the usual few gigajoules with leakage current. Don’t worry, this is a soundproof door.”

“Who are you and what do you want from me? Are you the ghost the shaman mentioned?”, the red-haired girl asked.

“I have no idea who that ‘shaman’ could be, but you did rather interesting things outside, Sakura Kyouko. The most interesting is, that you did them without a soul gem. You are inside your body.”

Even more distrust clouded the face of the spy. They had known she’d come! The voice didn’t disturb herself, she only waited a fraction of a second before she continued.

“I must know if I can trust you. Don’t even try to lie to me, I’m constantly measuring your brain waves and the reactions of your body with 7-digit accuracy. I want to study your abilities. I need you for my private research. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything unusual to you.”

“Or”, she added after a short pause, like she took a breath, “I can open the door.”

Kyouko couldn’t help laughing at the pinch she got into. She suspected that this dubious stranger wanted to subject her to very unpleasant (but perfectly business-as-usual) experiments. But she still had some confidence in the future. While she was conscious, she could still cook up something. With some luck even the guards could mistake her real body for an illusion and she’d be free to look around... as long as she could come to an understanding with this...

She gave her a vague nod.

“I’m glad to see some sense in you.”, the speaker answered. “By the way, I’m Meuko, the overseer of this facility.”


	2. Legendary Wonderland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the other two: Homura and Madoka are on a mission too. This is how former magical girls deal with witches. With science and guns, of course.
> 
> It's another very old chapter. The whole idea was conceived while I played Alice: Madness returns. This version of the text is a later development, though. I didn't change too much of it, but those are important points:
> 
> One was Homura's background 6 years after Walpurgisnacht. Reading Rumiberri's "Cat's Cradle" was a huge facepalm moment and it found its way in here too. More on the subject in chp#4.
> 
> Tags: Akemi Homura, Kaname Madoka, Walbey, Alice Liddell, Cheshire Cat, Cortexiphan, Pocket universe, Despair event horizon, Hawking radiation, Virtual particles, Moorgate Station, London

##  **Legendary Wonderland**

#####  _v0.901_

[5 May, 2017]

[London]

Yet another city. They didn’t even know how many cities they had visited in the last few years and they had never seen their nicer sides. And the more cities they had been to, the less difference they could see. Should these cities had been in Europe, Asia or America, the same atmosphere infected them all. The world wasn’t united, but its preparation for the last judgment was.

The two girlfriends were shaking with cold in the London night. It was already morning for them, but the Earth’s curvature ignored their inner clocks, and the weather was different too. The World Command demanded veterans for this mission and they were the most experienced veterans the UN/VP (the organization dealing with aliens, magical girls, witches and time-space anomalies) could get. Sakura Kyouko and Tomoe Mami were probably occupied with some black operation as even Homura couldn’t get a word out of the Kazamino bosses.

Many things had changed in the last six years, but the look of the girls wasn’t all different now. They looked a bit more mature, but it might have only been the uniforms, the most grown-up attire the maturing 21st century could wrap them in. Madoka had become a bit taller and gloomier while Homura, who had been a serious and mature 14-year-old, hardly changed at all. They were definitely the same girls they were at the time of Walpurgisnacht. At the age of twenty, in their gray camouflage combat uniforms they resembled the child soldiers of the end of the Second World War. But their slow retreat at the edge of a disintegrating universe was still less cruel than being sent to massacre and die in a war beyond reason after a slipshod training.

The mission was preceded by unusually serious preparations. When the girls arrived, the neighborhood was already teeming with the vehicles of UN/VP, the British army and Massive Dynamic. The police had just finished the evacuation and cordoned off the near blocks. It was apparent that what they found wasn’t an everyday witch. The only things they remembered causing this huge ruckus were Walpurgisnacht and the collapse of the Sarcophagus in Mecca.

They were in the middle of a building site, surrounded by a UN/VP squad in red berets. A short, gray-haired officer (Homura identified him as a Lieutenant General of the British Army with a quick look at his shoulder boards) stood in front of them, and the railed area was guarded by hundreds of soldiers and policemen. Helicopters were circling overhead, sweeping the area with reflectors. The General pointed to the pit of the ground works, where another squad in chemical protective suits were just lowering an amber gas tank into the rift.

“Ladies, I am Sir David Jasper Lindsay, Her Majesty’s delegate. And this is the Moorgate Station. The Old Moorgate Station, to be more exact, because the one currently in use was opened in the 50s of the last century. Its predecessor caved in during the Second World War, then it was buried and blacktopped. Unlike me, you are not natives so you probably don’t know about the evil repute of this place, so we prepared this summary for you.”

His assistant, a jug-eared, freckled, red haired young soldier gave them a pair of folders while the General kept talking.

“The city administration naturally never gave credence to gossip and superstition, but I can tell you that they were relieved when they could rebuild the subway line so it avoided this infamous place. During the 70 years it was in service hundreds of people went missing in this neighborhood and the station was frequently mentioned in the Scotland Yard’s documents. And still, no one could ever find any evidence, despite even police officers being listed among the missing.”

Madoka was listening the General carefully while Homura was listening the General and watching Madoka. There were two things she trusted: her own reason and the other girl’s intuition. The story began to look like an old spook story and behind those stories there were often witches. The General nodded acknowledging their attention and continued.

“This line was so feared that it got almost closed in the 1930s. During the War the city administration refrained from using this station as a shelter, but finally they opened it. After a few weeks of minor accidents the area was subjected to unusually intense bombing and the exits of the station caved in. The occupants were fleeing through the tunnel when a train crashed into the crowd, got derailed and closed the only way out. The survivors were waiting for the rescue team for several days without supplies. It took almost a week to withdraw enough soldiers from the battlefield to free them from the subway. The press were provided with some standard story, but in reality not every survivor of the train wreck could be rescued in the end. Many of them had to be sent to asylum and many horribly chewed bodies were found down in the tunnel, and none of this got public.”

The two girls had seen enough to find it plausible that there had been witches behind this disaster. Many people disappeared in their labyrinths and even more were influenced by them to do horrible things. What these creatures could do with a group of desperate, starving bomb shelter inmates didn’t bear thinking about.

“They devoured one another!”, Madoka whispered.

The General nodded again.

“The investigation concluded the same back then. I know what you might think, and this was the very reason why we asked for UN/VP supervision for the construction works. No one knows how long a bubble universe fed by the energy of several hundred lives can stay stable. We couldn’t risk another disaster.”

“And you were right!”, they heard from behind their backs. The girls whirled around, but the familiar creature was only an image on a laptop’s display. The camera turned upward for a moment and they could see Astrid waving, then the image was fixed again at the faux Incubator sitting in her lap.

“Walbey!”, the girls called at once.

“Hello my dear!”, the creature the other side of the screen looked at Homura. The little white creature treated her as a distant grandchild, just like Junko and Tomohisa had become like her parents. She couldn’t understand why these people wanted to be her family. She had never tried to wheedle her way into anyone’s confidence, she didn’t really know how to handle people to begin with.

“Unfortunately I can’t be there now, even though these guys sent us very interesting data from London! However, they forgot to mention that they dispatched you two to handle this anomaly!”

“We wanted to surprise you!”, Sir Lindsay grinned.

”By the way, is it you who hides Kyouko?”, Homura asked with feigned ease. It was clear that something was wrong.

“I’d like to say that she’s babysitting the little Etta.”, Walbey shook his head. In this form he didn’t have access to all those useful human expressions. “But for your safety I have to keep quiet. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you, at least not now.”

Madoka anxiously looked at Homura, then back to the display.

“But there’s no time to waste, my girls! The General has probably filled your heads with local ghost stories, but the measurements are strange indeed. So strange I needed a little LSD and a lot of Pink Floyd to see what should have been apparent. The bubble’s contact area is much smaller than that of a normal witch barrier. We ran the data through the servers at Massive Dynamic so we know that it probably won’t detach itself from our universe while you’ll be in, but it can collapse any minute. At any rate, I’ve made you a pair of auxiliary resonators tuned to our world, in case of this very eventuality. Should it occur, these are going to automatically catapult you after warning you through your head up displays. You’ll probably see leakage, so don’t be surprised! It also means that seeing strange things doesn’t mean you’re in. No matter how experienced you are, please always mind what your computers indicate! Oh, and break a leg!”

The little creature at the other side of the world waved then the screen went blank.

“So we’ll fly blind?”, Homura asked.

“At least until you get inside. And should the bubble universe collapse you’ll have exactly two minutes to get out of the pit, use the safety ropes. We can’t take the risk, we’ll immediately initiate the countdown should that happen.”, the General answered.

The girls read through their folders, checked each other’s equipment item by item (their lives depended on it) and injected themselves with their usual dose of Cortexiphan. Then Homura kissed Madoka’s forehead and Madoka gave Homura a tight hug. Even though they always stayed together and they couldn’t have returned alone, they always said goodbye before their missions. They fastened their carbine-swivels and started their descent. Very soon they lost the sight of the starlit sky and the HAZMAT squad overhead, just like they were descending to the pitch black bottom of the ocean. In this depth the wall was covered with huge fluorescent mushrooms and tiny, glowing maggots wriggled out of their burrows. Homura pulled her helmet’s amber polymer display in front of her eyes and saw Madoka doing the same.

The helmet computer combined the ‘real’ and ‘magical’ scenery, corrected the spatial distortions and loops it detected, showed the safest alternative routes toward the center of the labyrinth and their entry point and recorded everything like an airplane’s black box.

“T+42 seconds, depth: 34 meters”, Homura read the numbers the computer projected before her eyes. Time was slowing down and distances increased as they approached the former platform.

Her feet suddenly hit the ground. She detached herself from the wire rope and left a marker on it. Her helmet camera showed her the ruins of a former subway station: sagged but mostly stable pillars, debris on the once smooth stone floor, scattered bones in the darkness, marked by the biodetector. A differently tuned camera showed centipedes, snails, mushrooms and coarse grass. The marker on the rope was glowing in purplish light, next to the other, pink sphere.

She saw Madoka confidently walking toward the barrier, with careful steps not to stomp the little creatures. Homura followed closely, knowing that the bubble could scatter them far from each other should it catch them with a mere few seconds of difference.

They sprang over a deep crack that would have been lost behind the magical foliage without their ‘sober’ cameras, and approached that vague, cocoon-like blur that showed the most probable location of the bubble. Curiously this blur seemed to pulsate, extending and contracting like a heart throbbing midair.

The helmet screen showed lines of data next to the blur. The wide band sensor caught hints of Hawking radiation. Pairs of virtual particles were popping out of nothing at the edge of the pocket universe and sometimes one of the pair got caught by the bubble while their escaping counterparts formed a faint radiation of particles and antiparticles at the edge of the labyrinth.

Normal barriers were constantly shrinking as these little worlds were slowly evaporating through these particles that were produced out of nowhere. This was the reason the witches had to trick clueless people into the labyrinth: witches fed on the energy of their emotions while the tiny event horizons were sustained by the matter of the victims’ bodies. But this bubble was different. Maybe it was even less stable than their support team thought? Homura asked for a confirmation, but they couldn’t sense anything indicating the bubble’s collapse.

They circled the barrier with careful, practiced steps and met on the other side. Their moves might have looked like a strange tribal dance to the casual observer, but in fact they were building a mesh of sensors around the cocoon to find a suitable entry point.

Then they drew symbols in the air at the marked point. It wasn’t magic, just a signal for their computers. Homura had always hated the next thing. She closed her eyes to counter the side effect of the trick they had to utilize to surprise the witch, to get inside without letting her pull them in.

Her combat uniform’s built-in resonator shrieked: the bubble universes’ frequency usually had some unpleasant sounding harmonic. It was a distracting side effect of breaking through the walls between these worlds, just like the dazzling flash of elusive colored light that temporarily blinded her even through her closed eyelids, and the nausea that forced her to her knees. She knew that Olivia could cross these borders without resonators and deep inside she was sure that Madoka could have done it too if she wouldn’t have wanted to stay by her side all the way.

Homura looked up and saw Madoka standing beside her, like she always did.

“Take a deep breath, Homura-chan, you’ll feel better in no time!”, the other girl smiled behind the visor of her helmet. It was a surreal sight.

“I’ll keep the visor open for a while. Warn me if it would be tricky without it, okay?”, Homura asked while she staggered to her feet.

She looked around and was pleased by the sight: even her dose of Cortexiphan showed her a decent view of the labyrinth. The little world reflected the subway station outside, its membrane that separated it from the real world seemed to leak both ways. But she hardly had the time for a glance around, a train arrived. She traded a look with Madoka then they boarded the train.

They passed unmarked. The passengers were dozing in their seats. The two girls were glad that they didn’t have to fight the familiars: with the elimination of the witch they would get stuck in the collapsing bubble anyway. They cautiously stepped over the wriggling tentacles of a slumbering girl who wore a crown on the top of her raven, bobbed hair and left the carriage.

The wind carried flames around them, like they were in hell. Their boots squelched in tar puddles while they were sidestepping the piles of scrap metal. Then one of these piles stirred. Trash and tar slowly formed a creature, the creature reached down and grabbed a porcelain head of a doll. It turned the head in its hand to face the girls, then it began to approach them. Homura looked for a defensible spot, but they were standing in the middle of a barren waste, surrounded by scrap metal piles approaching with swaying steps.

The Massive Dynamic Model 78 clicked in her hand as she cocked the gun, and the next click was answered by a rain of gears and drops of tar as the explosive bullet blasted the familiar to pieces.

She heard a similar explosion behind her back. After she got out of the time loop Madoka became a good magical girl... No, a good Veneficus Puella, as the press deliberately misconceived the initials of Vortex Patrol. She grew more confident, just like when she signed a pact with the Incubators. All in all, Homura could count on her on the battlefield.

Now she was following Madoka, while the pink haired girl went after the guidance strip the navigation software projected on her HUD. They scattered a few more scrap monsters while advancing, just to see them re-assembling from the pieces. It would have been pointless to stop, they could have never ended the battle without vanquishing the witch.

Suddenly something unexpected happened. Someone came to their help here, in the dark depths of a labyrinth that had been buried for seventy years. A dark haired girl in a blue dress skittered through the group of monsters with superhuman speed and chopped them into pieces with a sleek blade of a kitchen knife. And what she chopped up wouldn’t stand up again.

Magic. Rumors had it that some witches could only be defeated with magical weapons, but Homura had never seen such a thing. Even Walpurgis had been vulnerable to the right amount of firepower. She looked questioningly at Madoka, but the other girl didn’t look back; she was staring frozen at the sky.

A huge, disgusting figure was towering above them. Drawers and puppet hands’ strings protruded from its serpentine body. Above its neck it looked like a goateed man, with tar oozing out of its every orifice, and hideous porcelain heads were looking around from the trails of tar.

Maybe it wasn’t the most horrible witch they had ever seen, but surely it was among the grossest. Its string-pulled, severed hands were snatching at the girls’ rescuer, but she skillfully evaded every attack and from time to time she landed a hit on the pale, knotted limbs.

Homura took aim and shot an explosive bullet right into the monstrosity’s eye. The detonation covered the place with tar and porcelain shards, but the monstrosity’s damaged skull just melted and re-formed itself. It was frustrating how it simply ignored her, keeping on snatching at the girl in blue dress, with success at that. It thoroughly groped the struggling girl, then hurled her to the floor. It held her down with four fingers, stuck out its sticky tar tongue and started to feel its way toward her.

Homura was stunned. Madoka wasn’t someone who could sit and watch a monster doing this to a magical girl... why wasn’t she doing anything now? Homura was horrified as she watched the disgusting tongue slowly flowing under the blue skirt...

She sprang up, at least she wanted to punch and kick the sickening Freudian monster, but Madoka grabbed her arm and held her back. Homura looked at her perplexedly. Madoka just pointed at the display before her eyes, reminding her that they saw the world differently.

“It’s no good, Homura-chan. The witch isn’t there.”

She bent down, grabbed a lead pipe and ignoring the monstrous hand she bashed the desperately squirming girl in the head. The towering abomination splattered like it was hit by a comet. The pocket universe started to tremble.

The pillar above them lurched as the gravity was preparing to crush them with it. The two girls dragged the third out of harm’s way without thinking, then they exchanged a look. What the hell would they do with an unconscious witch who didn’t even try to hurt them, but she had the grossest familiar they had ever seen? The girl lying before them was about the same age as they were, had pale complexion and delicate face. Witch or not, they pitied her.

“Every end is a beginning, and one day this world has to come to an end too. You would be the harbingers of doom, I suppose.”

The two girls turned on their heels but they couldn’t see anyone, save for a floating grin.

“Excuse my manners... I must have forgotten myself when I couldn’t answer my own riddles for the first time...”

The stranger slowly faded in from thin air. First his head, then gradually his every part. A big, bald, bony cat was sitting before the girls, his body covered in tattoos, with a constant, distracting grin, idly flicking his tail. He didn’t look trustworthy in the least.

“Please put that glare away. You might stab me with it like Alice does from time to time.”

“Do you mean the witch?” Homura watched the cat through her helmet display. “Why are you with her now? Haven’t you juiced enough energy out of her?”

“I’m not what you think.”, the cat answered. “The Incubator had long left her, but she needed someone, so she created me, the old, cryptic, selfish friend. Now it’s time for me to be selfless, at least this once. So I ask you: did you come to put an end to this farce? What if I don’t let you?”

Madoka sadly shook her head.

“This is a different age. Humans have learned about Incubators and united they’re not helpless against witches anymore. They have already prepared the amber gas tanks outside. We just came to try to close this bubble gently and save the survivors, should there be any in here. Should we fail, the HAZMAT squad would freeze your world in time and space.”

“So nothing would change. Not every change is good, but this world has been dying for a long time, and it’ll be dying forever if you don’t put an end to its agony.”

It was unsettling how the cat was still grinning. He was indeed too much like an ever smiling Incubator.

“So you want us to destroy this place?”, Madoka asked while she sat down. She stroked the forehead of the witch whose face calmed at once.

“The choice is yours.”, the cat said. “I can only tell you a story about a girl, who wished for a vast and rich Wonderland, and a white rabbit led her there. She had marvelous imagination, she kept reading until late night and in her dreams she was living in the stories she had immersed herself in while she was awake. And she could have it all, she just had to wish.”

“But that wish came at a price.”, Homura remarked. Always the same story, but they could never get used to it. Wishes corrupted to curses, and nothing remained but the endless fight with witches and a grave of despair.

“You must walk in the same shoes.”, the cat noted. “Yes, it came at a price. At first, Alice had visited her world with pleasure. But soon enough it became a way to escape. Her life in the outside world got ruined by an untouchable criminal you have just seen. Seen as Alice sees him, to be more exact. Here she can fight and defeat him again and again like she never could in her real life. She can avenge her family again and again, her family that this despicable worm burned alive after raping her beloved sister. And while she was fighting this world kept decaying. Hardly anything remained by now, save for this infernal train.”

“No wonder this universe is decaying: you’ve been buried for seventy years. You couldn’t devour a single human during that time.”, Homura said.

“Seventy years...”, the cat savored her words. “What year is it now? It was 1875 when Alice moved here for good.”

“2017.”, the girl answered.

“Alice must be hungry.”, the cat mused. “And I am a part of her.”

The guns pointed at him in the girls’ hands didn’t seem to trouble him much.

“I suggest you to do what you have to do. But I’d appreciate if you did it with due respect. I promise I won’t mess with you like I did with the queen’s executioner.”

* * *

Homura and Madoka silently cried for the girl in blue dress and her cat as they carefully placed the grief seed decorated with butterflies into an amber-polymer container. The little box automatically welded itself together with an orange glow. Now it was ready to take its resting place in a storage, much, much deeper than this subway station.

                                                                                 

The two girls returned with staggering steps to the wire ropes they used to descend. They weren’t in a hurry: there was no countdown, no quarantine was needed, the mission was a complete success. Not being truly happy about it was merely a part of the job.


	3. Reincarnation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Sakura Kyouko in sempai modo, Meuko, Nyameka Gretel Mathibe, witches (okay, one witch twice), witch's brew, bold practical (ab)use of fringe science , gravitational collapse

##  **Reincarnation**

_v0.903_

[Namibia, Central Plateau, near Hochfeld]

The lock clicked on the lab’s second door. Kyouko stepped through it without question and walked along the next corridor. What she had seen so far in this complex in the middle of nowhere was mostly like a mix of a military bunker and a research laboratory.

She tried to open a door that she walked past by stealth.

“The elevator is at the end of the corridor. Go to the 34th floor.”, the voice instructed as if it caught her trying.

Kyouko silently stepped into the elevator and pushed two random buttons. She would have been fine with any number as long as it wasn’t 34.

“Invalid destination.”, a canned voice announced.

She tried more numbers, none of them worked. She took a deep breath and typed 34 with a snarl.

“Destination accepted. Let’s go to the minus 34th floor!”

This time it was Meuko’s voice. Kyouko didn’t know who the person hiding behind that microphone was, but that someone was apparently playing cat-and-mouse with her. She angrily put her hands in her fatigue’s pocket. She heard whizzing, the content of her stomach tried to find its way back to her throat.

“Tests are run at sea level, between floor minus twenty and minus thirty-two to ensure an optimal environment for our subjects.”, Meuko informed her. “You are a particularly important subject so you’ll get your first assignment two more floors deeper.”

“You’re messing with me.”, Kyouko answered. “You want to know what would I do if I felt really shitty. But taking me for an idiot won’t be enough for that.”

“See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”, the speaker answered. The elevator shook and Kyouko’s weight doubled for a short while. Then everything fell silent, only the door hissed as it let her out to a flying scaffold.

Plain, flat concrete walls extended up and down from where she was standing. Her eyes couldn’t get a grip on the endless line of lights that followed a bundle of cables thick as a tree trunk, into the dark nothing in both directions. Kyouko had already been standing at the edge of Grand Canyon and she hadn’t felt that as deep as this mine shaft. Meuko might have been lying and they might haven’t been a mile underground, but the sight was still overwhelming.

“Thank you, _now_ I feel like shit.”, she unwittingly grunted.

“Okay, actually we have to be this deep because of the safety regulations. Like in Mojave desert. But to make you feel better I tell you that two of your friends are descending too right now. Kaname Madoka and Akemi Homura are exploring a deserted subway tunnel in London.”, Meuko tried to comfort Kyouko who just grit her teeth.

“Great...”

Kyouko stepped through the thick airlock door. Something flashed and for a moment the redhead imagined seeing the shadows of her own bones projected on the wall.

“I have good news for you. I couldn’t observe any pathological conditions in your system.”, the speaker announced. “You are suitable for the tests, and it’s high time to start! Test chamber one, class two opponent. You’ll probably experience strange phenomena but you don’t have to worry about the distortions of the laws of physics. These are corrected by the safety inertial frame of the Power Station.”

The airlock opened and something sucked out the air like there was vacuum outside. Kyouko just felt she wouldn’t have any choice but to follow the wind to the next bare room. She could only take a glimpse of the shiny metallic honeycomb pattern embedded in the yellowish, transparent wrapping on the walls before splashing into an invisible chunk of water. It was a familiar feeling: as the living sea surrounded her with crayon-drawn corals, floating schools of fish and dancing light over the sea bed, everything fell into place. Indeed, this test wasn’t the least bit unusual. She was alone in a labyrinth and her opponent was a witch, just the way it used to be. She allowed herself a grim crooked smile at this thought: she must have gone crazy to think of those days with nostalgia.

She took the little pistol she had been hiding under her clothes and cocked it. Despite its size the semi-automatic W17 gun was suitable to dispatch most familiars and witches and she wouldn’t have any chance against the rest anyway. She remembered the only fight where it would have been useless, the biggest battle of Mitakihara that she got dragged into by that lunatic Homura. The battle that had marked the beginning of her new life. At last Kyouko curled her mouth in a predatory grin. Her hunting instinct stirred. Face to face with a witch, one against one. No magic, no remote controlled body, no support team, no black box, no computer navigation; just her brains, her gun, her muscles and senses augmented by a standard dose of Cortexiphan.

She sneaked from coral to coral over the slanted sea bed, descending toward the heart of the bubble universe. The water around her became darker and the colorful little fish scarcer by every step she took. But something else began to glow in the dusk: a drifting figure, not far ahead of her. It was a young girl, not exactly a child, not yet an adult. Her hair floating around her head looked bluish gray in the twilight, but the turquoise light radiating from her naked body became stronger by the minute and it revealed soon that she wore a fish tail down from her waist. Kyouko sneaked closer to have a look at the mermaid’s face.

“Come on, show yourself, tell me the weakness of the witch!”

But she wasn’t so confident anymore. The Cortexiphan in her veins whispered that what that face would reveal wouldn’t be the witch’s weakness. And when she finally got a glimpse the sight almost brought her down. The floating, sleeping mermaid wore Sayaka’s face. Suddenly her blue eyes opened and fixed on Kyouko, then bubbles streamed forth from her mouth.

“Love me...”, the bubbles whispered. Kyouko didn’t know who the words were addressed to and she felt guilty enough without knowing or admitting that she had known it for years. But this little lapse almost got her killed: four series of needle-sharp teeth clashed where she had been a tenth of a second before.

The girl’s fingers pulled the trigger by themselves while she sprang aside with all her strength. Nothing itself bit off a large chunk of the attacking beast’s head. The empty sphere imploded, sea water and tufts of tissue filled its perfect vacuum. The abyssal monster sank into the mud with the remaining half of its head. The mermaid shrieked in bubbles while the tentacle that controlled her dragged her away too. Pink gobbets were floating in the creature’s wake for a second then the whole sea collapsed. A moment later only a deep black grief seed left, swaying on its tip over the bone dry concrete floor. Kyouko pocketed the little magical stone knowing that it wasn’t exactly safe.

“You’ve spent 85 seconds in the bubble.”, the speaker announced. “The next test chamber contains a class three opponent. You stand a good chance against it. Unfortunately you’ll fight a class four witch instead.”

“Not gonna happen!”, Kyouko sassed. “What kind of an oddball doesn’t know that test subjects have to eat sometimes? I go get some food now.”

“There’s a fully equipped kitchen right behind the next test chamber.”, Meuko answered. “I’ll open the door if you pass the test.”

Kyouko decided not to respond to her defeat. This unknown someone messing with her from behind a microphone annoyed her, but she didn’t want to gratify them by losing her cool. “I’ll be Homura to you!”, she thought. Then she corrected the thought. She’d be Homura from a number of loops earlier, before she started to come apart at the seams. She regretted a bit that she had cut her hair, it would have been elegant to just flip it back as an answer.

She kept walking anyway, making a mental map of everything she passed by. She was looking for a flaw on the walls or anywhere else, for any chance to leave the path that they forced on her. But there was nothing on the walls of the former mine shaft but that perfect, translucent honeycomb pattern. Then, suddenly, something lit up the metal mesh ahead.

Kyouko curiously dashed toward the strange light, just to nearly fall on her face in a pair of feet in once high-heeled shoes conveniently left in her way. She stopped to observe the person they belonged to: it was a dark skinned girl around fifteen. Her once elegant high school blazer and painstakingly made cornrow braids made a sharp contrast with her pose. She looked simply tossed against the wall, together with a perfectly mundane machete in her reach. She seemed semi-conscious at best as she sat there clutching a horribly darkened soul gem.

“No, you don’t...!”, Kyouko snarled in ever-useful English and grabbed the girl at her blazer.

“I’m Nyameka Gretel Mathibe.”, the unknown girl deliriously introduced herself. Even in this state she seemed trying to impress her with the name. She was a relative of the originator of the Power Station. Possibly his daughter.

“Good for you.”, the redhead growled. “No, actually too bad for you. Is this glowing in this goddamn mesh your doing?”

It was a rhetorical question, but the other girl answered.

“They have already started to collect my energy. Fly for your life... A few more minutes and only a magical girl can stop me!”

“Don’t even dream about it!” Kyouko took the grief seed from her pocket and pressed it against the other girl’s soul gem.

“How could you...?”, Nyameka asked in disbelief. “I can’t feel your magic. Why do you have this?”

Kyouko shook her hand as an answer.

“Special Agent Sakura Kyouko. Normally you wouldn’t last long with this weak grief seed, so brace yourself! It’ll be a bit shaky but nothing I couldn’t handle!”

The little black gem crossed the point where it couldn’t be any darker. Its surface cracked and crashed in, then the ornate grief seed collapsed into a plain black orb. A whirling disk of darkness formed around the floating little ball as its gravity kept on drawing the despair out of the soul gem that was glowing in a brighter shade of red by the minute. Black particles split off the inner edge of the disk and splashed into the liquid looking surface. Nyameka watched the tiny, black hole looking phenomenon with eyes widened in terror. The spectacular spatial distortions around the collapsed grief seed made her dizzy, then she fell headfirst into the nut-sized orb of darkness, together with Kyouko.

Splash. Debris and bubbles floated around her for a moment then they began to ascend with swaying moves, in the direction she suspected the surface. Her quickly pulsing soul gem was floating before her, as a warning of a witch, very-very close.

They hid in the shadow of a wrecked ship. The old vessel’s deck was full of skeletons, all dressed in surprisingly modern clothes. They could have possibly been the family or friends of the witch, and to Nyameka’s relief they didn’t move.

The master of the labyrinth was probably angry. It didn’t waste time or energy to leave baits for the girls but rushed at them from overhead. It was much larger than before and it had grown a whole bouquet of tentacles. Every one of them ended in a human figure, some were familiar to Kyouko, the others probably targeted the other girl. In the new set she recognized not only the mermaid Sayaka, but Mami, Madoka, Homura and even Walter. Then she had to run. She dragged Nyameka along while giving her a short, telepathic briefing.

“Stay still. We’ll have to handle this without your magic, otherwise we’d stake our lives in vain! Have you ever shot with a real gun?”

The other girl shook her head.

“No problem, it’s a toy gun. Where it hits it teleports a cubic meter of anything out of the labyrinth. If you curl up you might even escape with it... if it doesn’t cut you in half, that is. It works much more wickedly outside, it chews you well before spitting you out. Here, it’s cocked. When you pull the trigger it’ll shoot and reload, you won’t have to do anything. There are a dozen bullets in it. Use it only when you’re sure about the hit, if it’s possible.”

She took out a somewhat larger handgun.

“And this one has explosive bullets so you’d better stay clear of the witch.”

Then she suddenly veered tugging Nyameka with her while a bunch of girls in red scattered every which way with spears in their hands. The multiplying targets distracted the witch, it hesitated for a moment before making itself after a decoy. Kyouko fired and the explosion tore a hole in the creature’s flank, right where the decoy stabbed it with her illusion spear. This time the giant anglerfish couldn’t be taken out with a single shot, but luckily it fell for the trick and snapped at the bait. It furiously tore the girl in red apart, and the scattered pieces disappeared in a few seconds.

Kyouko took advantage of the opportunity and landed another hit. This time the bullet entered through the eye of the witch and the explosion ripped off half of its head, but even this wasn’t enough now. The anglerfish wormed itself alive in the mud and it only stuck out a single tentacle.

Nyameka knew this figure only from the news and it was a relief. She had felt bad enough with her dead, disappeared and convicted family members and friends. Her relief was short-lived: the pale, thin, raven haired girl conjured up a sub-machine gun and quickly brought down every decoy in sight. Then the thin girl aimed at them, and... she dropped the gun. Her eyes widened with surprise as she pawed the huge blade sticking out of her chest.

“The others were indeed illusions, but this one is real!”, Kyouko snarled from behind her. Nyameka looked with her jaw dropped to where Kyouko should have been. All the time she had thought that the real one was next to her, but now she saw nothing there.

The skinny girl fell on her knees and hugged Kyouko’s legs with a pleading look. Next to her another tentacle plunged out of the mud without warning.

“Kyouko-chan, we haven't done any harm to you! Please don't hurt Homura-chan! She was just protecting me! Who would remain for me in this world without her?”

It was an outrageously adorable, pink haired girl, a bit shorter than Nyameka and Kyouko: another famous, familiar face to the African magical girl.

Kyouko was taken aback. She hated the most when a witch looked inside her head and used what it found. This one must have been expecting her not being able to kill her best friends, even knowing that everything was a lie. It knew how she feared for them. No, it wasn’t a simple lie. It was an atrocity. Kyouko stabbed the wet eyed Homura again, cursing like a sailor. Tears under the sea? She must have been in some corny soap opera... She kicked the snarling, charging Madoka in the chest then she pulled the blade of the machete out of the lifeless body.

Suddenly she lost her balance. She was grabbing the hilt of the knife that she stuck in the mud – just to realize that the ground beneath her feet wasn’t mud at all. The remains of the anglerfish’s head blasted out of the seabed and she was left there hanging from the beast’s maimed nose by her weapon. She kicked off the enormous body leaving the knife and fired another explosive round.

“Drop dead already, you bastard!”, she gritted. Another explosion in the monstrosity’s head. At times like this it was better not to think about who the witch had possibly been. Luckily there was nothing human in this one, save for the figures on the end of its tentacles.

The monster just didn’t listen. Its mouth gaped open and not minding its missing half jaw it charged at her again. Kyouko heard a series of quiet clicks next to her. Giving a gun to the newbie proved useful after all. Hole, hole, hole, hole... This time the creature was left without a head, and it was too much even for it. The sea condensed again and the bloody pink drops rained down the same way as earlier, just to disappear without a trace. The shiny black grief seed was there, gently swaying on its tip like nothing had happened.

“Wow, you’re really Sakura Kyouko!”

“I’ve just said...”

“Anyone can say!”, Nyameka answered snappily. “But I recognized Rosso Fantasma! It’s really you! I’ve always wanted to meet you! Or Kaname Madoka or Akemi Homura! They were them, right? The black haired must have been Akemi, the pink one Kaname! It must have been these two! But I thought them a bit different. Are they really a skinny crybaby and a little cutie? I thought they were real veterans! And Tomoe Ma...”

“Oi, wait a minute, okay?”, Kyouko grumbled. She pocketed the grief again and looked at Nyameka in anger. “If you know us this damn well, why the hell have you become a magical girl? You look new to it, you must have known that it was a suicide!”

“I wanted my dad to succeed, to serve his people well, I wanted to be proud of him! I thought that I’d look you up after they granted my wish so I wouldn’t turn into a witch!”

Kyouko buried her face in her hands.

“You’re more than a little cheeky, rookie! I might even like it... But it’s not that easy to outsmart the Incubators. You might know enough about this _Power Station_ , but I’d better not interrogate you now... I already have a clue so I’d just like to hear two simple, one-bit answers, yes or no. Is this how your wish came true?”, she casually gestured around, meaning the whole facility.

“Y-yes...”, Nyameka admitted in shame.

“Does the _Power Station_ extract witch energy?”

Eyes wide open in horror.

“Yes...”

“I have no more questions. You’ve been sold down the river proper. Try not to think about it for now because this witch would kill us for sure if we tried to use the grief seed again. You have no idea how much stronger it was than earlier, but you can add it again to what you’ve seen. Or take the square of it. I’d rather kill you then, that would be much better for the both of us.

Nyameka was ashamedly studying the floor with her downcast eyes.

“Alright... let’s go get some food, I’m starving!”, the redhead directed her toward the kitchen.

It was really packed full. Kyouko filled her light backpack with biscuits, chocolate and condensed milk. She didn’t care the taste nor the healthiness, she only cared about gathering the most calories in the available volume. When she finished she packed full a table too and she sat down to eat with her MD78 in her reach. Nyameka was just standing there tongue-tied. Now she sat down too as Kyouko pointed at the chair at the other side of the table.

“What did you expect, Arnold Schwarzenegger with long hair?”, Kyouko asked after eating for a few minutes.

Nyameka didn’t seem to get it so she explained.

“Just because someone goes back in time to protect another, it won’t make her a Terminator. Not even if that someone fights like Homura. You want a veteran? You can have it. I’ve already fought her, and I don’t recommend you to even try. She’s weaker than me and weighs like nothing but she can be ungodly fast, in a different way than anyone else. It’s a remnant of her magic, like my Rosso Fantasma. But she doesn’t like to fight at all. I don’t even know why she’s doing this job. You called her a skinny crybaby? You know, after the things she’s gone through it’s really something that she still can cry. I’d surely have gone insane at the quarter of that time loop, but she made it. Okay, she might not be all there and she sticks to Madoka like glue, but still, she’s just a girl. A very good girl, if you look past the surface. Just like Madoka. They perfectly fit together, and they both are really good friends of mine. And now that I think, I probably know very well why they are still fighting.”

“But listen! We have more important things to do than sitting and chatting here. I tell you what we’re going to do now. We go and shoot a few Incubators. Aren’t you usually followed by such a sneaky little rat?”

“Tweebey can’t be too far.”, Nyameka answered. “He’s just disappointed now, I guess.”

“If you see it, kill it. We can rule out my guns, they wouldn’t leave anything usable. What magical weapon do you have?”

“Flammable liquid. I can shape it to make anything that burns. Flamethrowers, incendiary bombs, burning rain. This kind of things.”

Kyouko shook her head.

“We should get something gentler. This blade will do for now. I just have to be a bit more violent.”, she picked up a short, blunt junk of a knife from the counter.

“Why would you kill it? It always comes back.”

“That’s good because we need more of it!”, she answered then she switched to a louder voice. “Oi, Meuko! If you leave us alone with these stupid witch fights I can show you something far more interesting! I can already tell you that if these witches were class two and four, you can surely execute me with a class six...”

“This thing you want to show me... does it make energy extraction more efficient?”, they heard the speaker.

Nyameka was appalled.

“I can’t believe you’re voluntarily chit-chatting with it!”

“Why not? We don’t have to like each other to do business!”

“You’ve just lectured me about doing business with the Incubators! How exactly is it better to associate with an AI?”

“I used to be a magical girl, it’s my specialty to negotiate with the devil!”, Kyouko grinned biting into an apple.

She wasn’t even surprised. Instead, she exerted her brain to take advantage of this new piece of information.

“No, Meuko.”, she answered after a minute of chewing. “But I can show you how to upset anyone’s apple cart who wants to extract that energy. You said you have some private research too, didn’t you? Are you happen to be interested in making me a witch? Just because you tried earlier. I say it was hopeless. But if you help me, you can have two subjects at once!”

Nyameka was struck dumb and Kyouko was immensely grateful for this.

“Not exactly. But I’m interested in this method. What do you want in return?”

“A biochemical laboratory will do for now. I guess you have something like that around."

“There’s such research going on in this facility. But you can’t probably get in the lab through the corridors.”

“We are underground, there must be ventilation in every single room.”, Kyouko replied. “Just navigate me, everything else is my business!”

“All right. You can access a suitable air duct in the north wall, two meters above the floor. The grill is held by normal screws. Turn right at the first junction, then climb out through the fourth grill. There are scientists inside and two guards in front of the door.”

Kyouko renewed their conversation while crawling along the air duct.

“I’ll need one of the scientists as an aid. That guy will learn an unhealthy amount about us, but it would be unfair to make them help us then murder them, right? Could you mess up their memories, knock them out for several days, or something similar? You experiment on people, after all... By the way, aren’t you afraid of someone recording what you told me?”

“That someone has accidentally recorded silence. Probably because of a contact fault in the microphones. And you can do anything you wish to that researcher. I don’t understand why, but I can promise not killing him while he doesn’t pose an immediate threat.”

“Good. Could those microphones malfunction for a few more minutes? Together with the cameras.”

She peeked through the fourth grill. Two men in lab coats were standing behind the tables, an African and a Japanese looking. They were dripping unknown solutions into Petri dishes, examining other dishes under microscopes and taking notes. Kyouko made sure that there was no one else in the room and the scientists were immersed in what they were doing, then she silently dismounted the grill and leaned it against the wall of the air duct. She closed her eyes for a moment and disappeared from Nyameka’s sight.

The Japanese scientist was the first the collapse followed by the other who didn’t even notice what happened. It was a bizarre sight how the bodies floated to the wall by themselves, their wrists and ankles got tied with duct tape and their mouth wrapped by the same invisible force.

Cabinets opened and closed as Kyouko browsed through their content, then the lab’s double door followed. Very soon the two guards outside lied down to take a nap. Then the redhead appeared, she dragged the unconscious black scientist out of the lab through the airlock, locked the door and broke the key into the lock. When she finished she crashed every camera in the room. Then she pulled a rubber glove on the only one she spared and waved to Nyameka to come and began to bring the Japanese scientist around.

“If you do what I say you might survive the next day.”, she said when the man finally looked at her.

The scientist’s eyes widened as he saw her face but he couldn’t answer.

“So you recognized me. Good. Then you know that I’m not joking. And that this _Power Station_ has been noticed at high places. You can be sure that even if I disappeared this case wouldn’t be closed. The next team has probably already prepared to intervene. Now I’ll remove the tape from your mouth, but you won’t speak unless I ask you. Just try to shout and you’ll be dead.”

The middle-aged balding man blinked then he nodded. Kyouko tore down the tape in one motion, like she tested if her captive can stay silent. The test was a success, the only sound the scientist made was a quiet hiss.

“Good. As you can see, I’m not alone. My friend here is a magical girl. You must know what that means: she needs medical help.”

“I’m not skilled at..”, the man began.

“You don’t have to. This is why I’m here.”, Kyouko cut him short. “But it helps to have an assistant. If I didn’t screw up something Meuko is blind in this room right now and she doesn’t even have hands to begin with. Okay, let’s start with a question... have you been working with Incubators?”

“Yes... they take part of power generation supervision and background research. Sometimes they even visit this very laboratory.”

“Through that door?”, Kyouko gestured at the hopelessly jammed airlock.

“No one knows how they move about. They usually just step out of the shadows.”

“We need a few, in dead condition.”, the girl stated without so much as a blink. “If you have some calling signal for them, use it!”

“We usually message them from the computers.”

“Convenient. Meuko, call an Incubator!”, she turned toward the covered camera.

“No one else can see us, you understand?”, the girl asked, or much more instructed the AI.

Before she could have answered Kyouko pulled the rubber glove off the camera and aimed it at an empty operating table.

“See? Some humans do keep their words.”

The answer arrived in a physical form. Kyouko was upon the appearing alien in the blink of an eye and rammed the blunt knife into its head. A moment later the black and white furry creature was lying stretched on the floor.

“So you aren’t that omniscient...!”, said Kyouko through her gritted teeth.

One more move, one more furry body. It was the aliens’ bad habit to immediately return when killed. But the little bastard would surely learn from this the second time...

The next instance appeared behind her back and had a good look.

“Well, well, Sakura Kyouko, did you pop up here too?”

It was surprised to see her, just like the tied up scientist. So Meuko hadn’t given her away. It was good news.

“I am aware that you need this body too, but couldn’t you leave the next one alone?”, the alien asked.

“You’re curious, aren’t you?”

In the next moment they had three bodies because Nyameka quickly killed this one with a scalpel.

“Thank you, Kyouko, I needed it.”, the Namibian girl said while she placed the corpses on the table. Kyouko gave her a grim smile. Anyone who got to know the Incubators would reach the point where they could kill them with pleasure. Then they would get tired of it. The rookie was still at the first stage.

“Where do you store solvents?”, Kyouko asked the still tied up man.

“In the next row, the second cabinet from the left. I can help you if you released me.”

“I can manage myself, thank you.”, she opened the cabinet. “Acetonitrile... this will do.”

She grabbed a sufficiently large bowl, filled it with the content of a few bottles then dipped the corpses in the liquid. While they were dissolving she released the Japanese scientist.

“Assemble some power supply for electrolysis. It would be nice to have a few hundred volts and watts, but the most important is the waveform: it must be a 33488-hertz half sine. Seven octaves above middle C, plus harmonics, so to speak. I want to see the current on the scope, and I need two pots for the frequency and the voltage.”

Then she turned to Nyameka.

“Lie down on this table. You don’t have to undress. It doesn’t matter what you do with your body, just give me your gem.”

“What do you want to do with it?”

“What do you think? I’ll drill a hole in it then crush it when it’s weakened.”

The African girl was definitely reluctant to hand her soul gem to Kyouko, who tried to reassure her.

“If you stay in the team you’ll see wackier things. Walter’s science includes a lot of boldly simple and illogical things. I couldn’t even think about such a thing, but he is... he was Walter. You don’t have to worry, it’s a common method, we did the same thing to Homura. Except we had to wait until the last minute to cut her gem out of the amber because Kyubey had already scratched it... So we had to keep her body on life support while cutting it out of the amber otherwise it would have rotten on us... But believe me, I had to undergo something even worse. It’s not always good to be the first... Sorry, I forgot I still need your body! Stretch your arm, I need a few deciliters of your blood for the tuning process.”

She filtered the remaining tufts of fur out of the suspicious looking liquid, mixed it with the blood and seasoned it with various salts.

“Now come the electrodes. We’ll bind the magnets’ receptors to your DNA. Wow, this sauce looks gross... And I’ll inject you with it in the end! If you were a normal person you’d surely kick the bucket in an hour...”

Then she faced the camera.

“Now look here, Meuko! The point of this whole mess is to keep the right waveform! It keeps changing as the saturated magnets accumulate at the anode, so I’ll constantly have to follow the process with the pots. I turn the display so you can see what I’m doing.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”, the Incubator commented. “The intermediary agent wasn’t designed for this. We don’t even know why it works with humans. You’re doing something very interesting, but we don’t even have a theory to explain what’s happening.”

“I don’t understand either, but we did it several times when we didn’t have proper equipment. But why don’t you ask Walbey if you’re so curious?”

“We’ve already asked, but he wouldn’t answer. Why aren’t _you_ afraid of us finding out your secret?”

“I wouldn’t believe you if you told me you haven’t already seen. You guys just sneak in everywhere and poke your noses into everything.”

Kyouko hung the electrodes in the opposite sides of the bowl, watching the screen and the surface in turns, modifying the voltage and frequency until she saw an expanding black cloud in the reddish liquid. It took at least half an hour for her to speak again.

“It’s going to hurt. Doctor, you should hold her down for a few seconds...”

Though Nyameka had been anxiously watching what Kyouko was doing, she wasn’t prepared for the pain that hit her when the diamond edged drill bit through the surface of her soul gem. Luckily she immediately lost her consciousness. Kyouko dipped the beat-up gem in the middle of the black cloud then cranked up the voltage. The black cloud turned reddish again and standing waves emerged on its surface while Nyameka stopped breathing. Then Kyouko sucked this red liquid up with an immense syringe and pumped it all in the other girl’s vein. She waited a few minutes then she fished the now translucent smoke-colored gem out of the remaining liquid. Finally she smashed the gem with a hammer.

“The operation was a success, the patient died!”

It was a bad joke, but true.

“Enjoy your new life, rookie...”

Said rookie was fighting the difficulties of breathing, being very far from enjoying that new life. As the splinters of the gem sprayed all over the table just to quickly evaporate, Nyameka’s dark eyes sprang open and she stared in the distance. Her face distorted, her body arched and she desperately gulped for air. Her limbs made pointless moves as her subconscious was gauging this new kind of connection with her body, then she stretched again, limp like a broken doll.

“I hope the vent works well...”, Kyouko remarked while she poured the remaining muddy liquid into an air-tight container.


	4. Iris

# Iris

_v0.905_

[Mitakihara City]

It was evening again, this time by their own time. The two girls were sitting in Madoka's room, dressed in pajamas. Actually the pinkette was lying on her belly while she was looking for answers on her laptop while Homura was typing the report about their London mission.

But mostly she was sitting before the screen, with her face buried in her hands.

“I’m so sorry, Madoka... Even I wouldn’t have thought that we’d have to kill others’ favorite storybook heroines when we applied for this job...”

“Homura-chan, this is horrible! I had seen many witches before, but she was different!”

Homura sadly shook her head.

“I haven’t seen such a witch either! She didn’t just look human, she was lucid and suffering. But I think that witches rarely feel well, it’s just we don’t understand them.”

“And now that we... killed her... what will happen to her?”, Madoka asked.

“But you know as much as I know what the regulation says. She’s going to be buried together with the other grief seeds two kilometers under Mojave Desert. There they’ll freeze her in amber and guard her 24 hours a day. And it’s the UNIT’s commander-in-chief’s responsibility to implode the whole tunnel if such danger arose that our civilization couldn’t guarantee its safety anymore.”

“I know that, Homura-chan! But are you sure she won’t keep suffering in there? You said that we can revive a witch if we make the grief seed absorb too much misery. What if she’s still dreaming inside and we’ve just pushed her deeper in her own hell? It can’t be good.”

Homura froze. Dreaming inside the amber...? She knew the feeling. She went through that hell and she could never fully recover. She didn’t want to think of the many buried witches – but they could possibly do something for this one.

“You think what I think, Madoka!”

“We should ask Walbey. They’d never let us in there, but he could probably manage to free her...”

Madoka could have counted on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had seen the other girl grinning like this within their six years together. But now Homura was happy that she could do something for Madoka and ease her own conscience at once. They would break lots of rules as grief seeds were basically treated like biological weapons, and it made their daily good deed exciting.

The dark haired girl didn’t hesitate but called Walbey’s laboratory at the Harvard University. Astrid appeared on the screen, this time she was alone.

“I’m sorry girls, but he’s walking Gene at the ballpark. I can call him in, or I can deliver your message, if you like.”

“Thank you, Astrid, we’d really like to talk to him.”, Homura answered.

It would have been easier if Walbey kept his cellphone with him... But she knew that it was impossible. Not only because the little creature didn’t have a pocket, he could have used a simple backpack after all. The real problem was the complex, wardrobe sized contraption standing in his laboratory. This machine converted the faux Incubator’s thoughts into electric signal that symbolized sonic waves, and it was his only way to communicate with anyone not in his close proximity.

Madoka giggled as the creole woman turned her back to the camera and stepped out of its sight. They had rarely been around Boston so they could see the odd pair walking in the park only once, but she was not likely to forget the sight for the rest of her life. Animal and “incubator” had seemed to get along really well.

The University administration was proud to provide home for the renegade alien. The cow-riding little white animal was a popular attraction – because Walbey was officially known as a rebellious alien who was siding with the Earthlings. The renegade Incubator arrived shortly after Dr Walter Bishop fell into a coma in the infirmary of the Wissenschaft Prison in Frankfurt. His real identity was an open secret, it would have been awkward to talk about it, and no one had ever tried. The world needed the mad scientist who started the decay of the Universe to be punished, and the world needed Dr Walter Bishop, the genius who could perhaps stop this decay.

Homura didn’t even have the time to think this over, they heard the moo of a cow very soon. The expected white furry snout appeared on the screen, complete with that familiar permanent smile and enthusiastic red eyes.

“Good morning... evening, girls! What can I do for you two? Apart from the revision of your Cortexiphan dose, Homura! Feeling sick from entering a simple labyrinth can be dangerous!”, he warned her. It was rather worrying how he looked just as cheerful as ever, apart from a little head shake. The girls couldn’t even know how he was coping with his forced animal role. They hoped that his family and friends who were by his side could support him.

“Walbey, we’d like to ask you for something. Something big.”, Homura began. “We’re worried about this last witch. You’ve seen the records, haven’t you?”

“I have indeed...”, he stared at them from behind the monitor for a while. He was probably daydreaming, the girls guessed. In the meantime he picked a Pocky from a mug with his paw and started chewing. He had got the first packet from Kyouko and he often ordered Pockies since then.

“Strange... Did you know that my sense of taste is so different in this body? This stick, for example, reminds me of curry. Belly loved this blend, he often ordered it for our night experiments.”

The girls were waiting patiently. After a minute of thinking and chewing Walbey continued.

“If you find those events strange, I agree with you. To have such conversation with a witch, even indirectly... is unusual. But what would you like me to do? I’d gladly have a chat with her. Or interrogate her, if you like.”

“Walbey, please rescue her from being ambered! I think she’s still conscious and keeps suffering!”, Madoka exclaimed. “I’m afraid we made a big mistake, but... I really don’t know what else we could have done.”

She knew exactly what she would have liked to do. She wished to bring every witch back, to save them all, to reverse the destruction the Incubators brought on their victims and the world. Secretly she hoped that one day they could do this too. Once in a while she had thought of turning the weapon of her wish against them. She was backed by the whole huge organization that existed to save magical girls. They surely wouldn’t let her turn into a witch. Even if no one else would help, Homura would be there with an amber grenade and she'd carry the frozen Madoka even on her back to the nearest laboratory where Madoka could get her soul magnets too.

But these days the Incubators were more careful, they dissected and analyzed the wishes before freeing their contractees’ power to make them real. There was nothing else left for her but to fight for those she could still help. And while she kept fighting she eventually grew out of the age when the aliens were interested in her.

“It’s decided then!”, Walbey smiled. It was his only expression, though. “I’ll send a message to Nina Sharp, she has her men in the Repository... If everything goes well, it will be on the way to the Kazamino lab soon. And I’d like to see you two there in the morning the day after tomorrow. There’s something else I’d like to tell you privately. Better be cautious!”

“Thank you, Walbey!”

The two girls felt a bit relieved now that they broke the ice. It was a bit strange that Walbey would come to see them in person, but everything had started the same way after all... Madoka decided that it was time to celebrate. They did rarely drink alcohol, but now she poured two shots of her birthday whisky that they got from Junko and clinked their glasses together.

Madoka was aware that Homura wouldn’t ever do such things without her. Despite the years since their victory the other girl still didn’t know how to enjoy life. Possibly she couldn’t believe she deserved to. Madoka took a deep breath. Of course, that past wasn’t so easy to redeem. Homura had grown up among doctors and nurses, she had been sickly, weak and shy. She had only one strength: it was her will, but she hadn’t even known about it back then. She had been all alone, without a friend, except for the first Madoka who gave her soul for a kitten’s life, the Madoka who was now resting in peace, buried under a heavy pile of time weighing a hundred months and six years. Very few could have kept their sanity through that hundred months. Even Homura could only have a narrow escape as a dangerous borderline witch, frozen in a chunk of amber.

* * *

When Homura returned to Mitakihara she visited Madoka right after her own rent. The whole family was home, and Junko was cold sober and determined to give Homura a piece of her mind. She knew too much to be really cross with her, yet she felt that the girl would deserve at least this much for making her daughter cry through the last two months of the school year. But when she saw Homura in the door she dropped the whole idea. The girl came soaked to the skin but she didn’t seem to care, or even realize. She was standing outside in the ice-cold rain, and before anything else she started to apologize to Junko. Madoka’s mother dragged her in the house in shock, then her shock turned to anger as she thoroughly questioned the drenched girl while drying her. Junko’s anger was directed against Homura’s landlord who just pitched out the girl’s belongings to the corridor after her disappearance, but first and foremost against her parents who had long given up to care for their seriously ill child.

As Junko was watching Homura everything fell into place. Now she could easily imagine what she had only heard about: a magical girl with a pitch black soul gem. She could perfectly understand Madoka who would have surely worried sick for the raven haired girl if she had lost sight of her again, even for a minute.

So Junko decided to keep her with the family for at least a few days. These days became weeks, months, then years as the parents saw how Madoka was sticking to the dark haired girl. She took into her head with great determination that she would heal Homura-chan. She felt since her visit in Boston that there was something wrong with Homura, even more so than before Walpurgisnacht. Her suspicion proved true when she woke with a start in the middle of the first night and she found the guest futon empty. She got up anxiously to look for Homura and found her in the bathroom. The girl was leaning over the bowl, keeping her now disheveled hair back with one hand.

“Madoka, I’m so sorry that I burden you with it too...”, she apologized with a deathly pale face. “I don’t know if I can ever get away from these nightmares. They’ve been haunting me since I first saw you die and they got even worse with every cycle. I thought that they would leave me after we defeated Walpurgis, but I was wrong. The worst was still to come, inside the amber! I had thought that even time would be frozen in there... Madoka, I had never been so wrong before! I dreamed through the whole time, and I still can’t shake off the memories of that empty, misshapen Mitakihara. I skimmed through the whole city looking for you but you were nowhere and there was no exit. I was scared that you might have sold your soul to Kyubey to save me and that was why I couldn’t find you. In the meantime I exactly knew where I was and that there was really no exit and it was impossible to do anything for you from in there. And those children were there too... They knew my thoughts, they were waiting for me everywhere just to laugh at me! They mocked me, threw things at me then they cozied up to me and called me to a better world. Every time I close my eyes they are still here, grinning inside my head... Madoka, I really wanted to die, but I couldn’t even do that...!

When Madoka had first (for their last timeline) met her, the wall had already been cracking around her jaded soul. Now that the (hundred) evil months were over she couldn’t maintain her stoic mask anymore. She still tried to halfheartedly pretend for the rest of the world, but she was way too tired to act when she was alone with Madoka.

She let her tears trickle down her face, shaking with silent sobs. She still couldn’t fully believe that it was all over, that they both survived the night of Walpurgis and they weren’t even doomed to turn into witches. Like a fairy tale. She clang desperately to the real, living Madoka who dragged her back to her room and kept her in her arms for the rest of the night, guarding her dreams. While Homura was at last sleeping still Madoka watched her face among her dark, tangled tresses. She began to grasp how badly the other girl needed her.

“Poor Homura-chan, you struggled so much to protect me... Now it’s my turn to protect you!”, she whispered into the darkness with determination.

From that time on they didn’t even think of the guest futon anymore.

The following day Madoka learned that no matter how hard they tried to keep quiet they woke up her parents. Madoka told everything to her mother one-on-one.

“That poor girl’s so thin that she doesn’t even need the half of the bed... 40 percent will be more than enough for her!”

Even though Junko was joking she was apparently worried for Homura, she just didn’t yet know how she could help her.

Later, as time went by, Madoka had to realize that her ordinary life was over. School seemed to have lost its point, they were just hanging around aimlessly in the strange glass building, hand in hand, always heavy hearted. Even their teachers didn’t seem to resent at them – but they used the two damaged girls as an object lesson for their students about contracting with little white creatures. And the two were ever so slightly happy to help to scare the potential victims away from the Incubators.

Madoka was relieved when her parents realized it too and let her do what she felt the most useful. They understood that it was the best for their broken daughters - because they got used to think of Homura as their child too. Soon enough the two girls found themselves in the newly founded UN/VP, together with many former magical girls. Madoka had never made a contract, yet she did exceptionally well in the Cortexiphan tests. Probably the time loop that made her so promising target for the Incubators made her latent potential more accessible, so she did better against hostile magic than most former magical girls.

At long last they could ease their conscience. In this team they could save a number of magical girls from their certain fate. Madoka finally felt to live a meaningful life and she was grateful to see that it helped Homura too: she woke up less and less frequently in the middle of the night with terrified gaze, drenched in cold sweat. If she’d still had a soul gem its darkness would have possibly been slowly fading.

But the dark haired beauty was a difficult girl. She was thankful to Madoka’s parents for everything and she did her best to be nice and polite to them, but she guiltily averted her eyes every time Junko or Tomohisa looked at her. Madoka could finally get out of her why she was so afraid of them.

“Madoka, I feel like a traitor... I should leave before it’s too late. They’re so nice to me, try to look after me, and I... I turn their only daughter’s head behind their backs!”

Her downcast eyes and hot blush made Madoka burst into laughter. Whatever had happened, she just couldn’t feel it a disaster.

“Homura-chan, it was already late when you first came here... But you didn’t have any ulterior motive when you moved in, did you?”

“N-no way!”, the other girl protested vehemently. “No way I would want to taint you, to spoil your future! But I let them keep me here...”

“What if I said that it was me who picked you out?”, Madoka winked at her playfully, stroking her face. “That would make them my accomplices. Would you feel any better then?”

Homura’s eyes widened.

“Madoka... it’s... not possible! You’re not like that!”

“No, Homura-chan, I’m not and neither are you. Sometimes things just happen and the best we can do is to let them happen.”, Madoka said gently and kissed her for the first time in her life.

“Don’t be afraid of mom!”, she tried to calm her before dinner. “Do you think she doesn’t already know? Do you think she minds? Believe me, you’d notice if she was worried for me...”

This evening Homura tried to force herself not to run away and she began to suspect that Madoka was right. The Kaname parents appreciated her effort and, if it was possible, treated her even more kindly than usual.

Then, after dinner, Junko and Tomohisa exchanged a look. Tomohisa took Tatsuya away but the girls were kept by the table by Junko.

“Madoka, I’d like to talk you about something very important. Homura, I want you to stay too.”

Junko’s words startled the dark haired girl. Madoka gave her an encouraging smile, but she wasn’t entirely calm either. The woman waited for her husband to return before she started to speak.

“Madoka, I’m really proud of you. You grew up to be a good kid. You don’t do anything bad and you don’t try to deceive me. The question is, aren’t you deceiving yourself? I know that one can’t choose the one she loves, but sometimes it takes a while to realize that what she felt was something else. Very few have to go through the things you two had to. It would have been a miracle if it hadn’t shocked you. And such a shock can easily mix up your emotions. This is why I ask you to give yourself some time and think it over very carefully. The choice you’re about to make could make your life difficult, this world can be surprisingly malignant at times. Beside fighting witches you’d have another battlefield to combat the prejudices every day. Even we get strange looks just because it’s your father who stays home and takes care of you while I work. People don’t care for one another but they’re more than happy to badmouth you should you dare to be different. You have no idea what you’d take upon yourself if you kept on doing this.”

The normally pale Homura was now staring at Junko with a dead white face. Things weren’t going as well as the ever-optimistic Madoka imagined. Homura felt like running away, packing her every possession into a duffel bag and leaving this house for good. She knew that she was a threat to Madoka and she wanted to end it. But her trembling legs wouldn’t obey her vague orders. She cursed her own selfishness that could weaken her this much. Junko saw her struggling. She placed her hand on Homura’s and firmly held it on the table.

“I haven’t finished yet. You must have a deep look into yourself, the both of you. I know that anything you find there will probably scare you. But you’re young, and it’s easier to recover in your age. This is your time to learn how to fall down. But you must know that even if you’re perfectly sure that these are your true feelings, you won’t have to be afraid of us. We will always be by your side, even against the world.”

“And don’t even think of doing something stupid, Homura!”, she warned the black haired girl. “It’s us who wanted you here. We’ve taken a liking to you. We know that you’re just as a good girl as Madoka. We know what you’ve been through, we even have an idea how ill you think of yourself... But even you can’t really think that we could just throw you out after this all.”, she gave the girl’s shaking hand a reassuring squeeze.

Junko didn’t talk in vain. Homura got an own room in the Kaname house, though she spent most of her time with Madoka in the pink room. The two girls kept on clinging to each other so much that they could finally convince the parents. Homura irrevocably became a member of the family. Together with Madoka they were Tomohisa’s helpful aids, at least when they weren’t on a mission. Homura proved to know her way around the kitchen and over time she learned to get along with Madoka’s little brother too. Kindergarten and grade school teachers accepted that beside his parents and sister there’s one more person, “Homura-nee-chan”, who was allowed to take Kaname Tatsuya home. They didn’t trouble her with their questions, even though most of them had already heard steep things about her. Could this silent, withdrawn girl be the undead time traveler who had sold her soul and almost died for that other girl, but prevailed against a whole alien race in the end and revealed them to the world? Those who saw her just shook their heads in disbelief.

The two girls often stopped at the park on the way home, and Madoka was always happy to see Homura absorbed in playing with Tatsuya. Sometimes she could even see a real smile on her face.

But there were others than Madoka’s family too to participate in their double life. The two other members of their old little team were frequent guests in their house. Mami was easy to catch as she worked at the underground base in the mountains near the neighboring town Kazamino as the “face of the UN/VP”. Kyouko was harder to take hold of, she was involved in missions everywhere around the world, not unlike Madoka and Homura – but the nature of her missions was hazy even to them.

When they had returned to Mitakihara the redhead clearly denied to ever attend to any horribly boring school. She remained somewhere around the Harvard instead to stay with Walter and pick up some knowledge she thought much more useful, and to entertain herself with the mysteries that seemed to always find her there. She hadn’t even been seen around Mitakihara for a year, but lately she frequented the city again. Once she accidentally let out that it wasn’t even the city that brought her back, it was the company of her friends.

* * *

The thought of their red haired friend returned Madoka to the present. She was determined to get out of Walter where Kyouko had lately been. It would be the day after tomorrow.

She had long finished with her drink by now while Homura was still cradling hers. This was one of the things she found so cute in her: she drank so gingerly, in so tiny sips that she reminded Madoka a little kitty who was afraid of burning her tongue. Madoka gave her a beaming smile, hugged her then sat behind her for one of their rituals: she arranged Homura’s dark, flowing hair in two long braids.

One of the first things she had noticed about the cool and graceful Homura was the way she wore her hair. Her mystic, shiny black tresses seemed to defy the laws of physics as they split in two behind her back. They were like a message telling that their owner would do the impossible. But back then Madoka had no idea for whom Homura go such lengths. She also learned it later that her hair practically split out of a habit: it had been braided for so long that it forgot how to be free again. Anyway, Madoka loved this hairstyle so much that she had taken on the responsibility of braiding the other girl’s hair every evening. Moreover, when she had first seen the result, she burst into laughter. And if it hadn’t been funny enough, Homura put on her old glasses she didn’t need anymore and showed her how she looked when they first met. The impression baffled description. Madoka felt like taking her home but she couldn’t because they were already there.

She had become thoroughly experienced at braiding the silky black tresses by now. She just had to place the last purple bow and she was ready. The girl sitting before her was the new Homura with her past hair style. Inside and out, she was a strange mix of the person Madoka first met and another from a hundred timelines earlier. But all this mix was Homura, and Madoka accepted her the way she was.

“Come, Homura-chan...”

Madoka threw her arms around the other girl and leaned back together with her. Then they were just lying, staring at each other smiling until the missions, witches and grief seeds faded away, leaving nothing but the two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Anyways, Father looked at that loop of string for a while, and then his fingers started playing with it. His fingers made the string figure called a 'cat's cradle' . . . but he went down on his knees on the carpet next to me, and he showed me his teeth, and he waved that tangle of string in my face. "See? See? See?" he asked. "Cat's cradle. See the cat's cradle? See where the nice pussycat sleeps? Meow. Meow."
> 
> Hah! Some more Vonnegut for GOSE (beside the intro of the 9th chapter, you'll see or have already seen) :D So where's the cat here? Well... Cortexiphan!Homura doesn't wear cat ears, but she definitely isn't far from doing so. I don't even know how this chapter would have been born if I didn't read Rumiberri's "Cat's cradle". But now that I did I can't even deny it. This is the first so yuri-ish thing I've ever written. But one must start it once, I guess.
> 
> What's in this chapter? The two girls and their background. I think I did properly break them... Sealed in amber, together with her pitch black soul gem, ready to die more than anyone else to save Madoka from the Incubators' grip? How could she think she would get away like this? Possibly Mikuni Oriko was guiding my hand when I wrote her attempt years before Rebellion... She'll be in the story later too, out of gratitude. And because the other girls would be in trouble without her...
> 
> About the title: this is the first and only chapter in GOSE to have a title that doesn't have anything to do with the things that happen in there. It's a ZUN title, like the others. Iris is the track I listened the most reading Cat's Cradle. Grief Syndrome could have possibly been a better title, but that game's by Tasogare Frontier, not ZUN... but... Hopeless Masquerade (chp11) too. Okay, you've cornered me :D
> 
> (How does it feel to read my incoherent rants anyway?)
> 
> Tags: Kaname Madoka, Akemi Homura, Kaname Junko, Walbey, flashback, very-very soft MadoHomu, amber, Cortexiphan. Always Cortexiphan.


	5. Disunified Field Theory of Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The hell happened? Somehow MGC/chp8 got mixed in here. Sorry for the inconvenience!)
> 
> Tags: Akemi Homura, Kaname Madoka, Sakura Kyouko, Nyameka Gretel Mathibe, Walbey, Parallel universe, David Robert Jones, Samuel Weiss, Soul magnets, Cortexiphan, 3D, Observers, Mekka, Kazamino, Fine-grain multithreading, Every magic is black magic, They won't say goodbye
> 
> Beta read by shiNIN. Comments, reviews, spotting mistakes are appreciated.

****

#  **Disunified Field Theory of Magic**

_v0.921_

[Hochfeld Power Station, Namibia, 115 feet above sea level]

When Nyameka woke up Kyouko was sleeping in an office chair, resting her head on a desk, using a folded lab coat as a pillow. She kept her gun on the desk, within her reach. Nyameka entertained herself with the thought of sneaking there to lift the pistol, but she felt too nauseous and dizzy for such a joke. On the top of that, she wasn’t sure if it would have been safe to remove the IV line from her arm.

To her surprise she couldn’t see anyone else in the laboratory. It took a while for her to find Kyouko’s hostage, now unconscious, leaning against the wall. The only door was blocked by a pile of lockers and tables, the lens of the only camera was covered by a cleaning cloth. Her savior didn’t take any risk.

“Kyouko!”

She wasn’t sure what she wanted to tell her. Perhaps she wanted to thank her.

The redhead turned around with the chair in a fraction of a second and looked at her fully awake.

“So you’ve survived. Good. This operation is usually but not always successful. You had a fair chance for a nice cyanide poisoning so I administered a lot of sodium nitrite and thiosulphate, because from now on you can’t probably heal yourself with magic. By the way, how does it feel not being a lich anymore?”

“A... what?”

“I knew someone who called it a zombie... though I think a _lich_ is a more exact term.” Kyouko answered with a wave of her hand. “But I wanted to ask you if you can walk or at least crawl on all fours because we can’t stay here.”

Nyameka hesitantly nodded.

“Now I can’t turn into a witch?”, she asked.

“I don’t want to lie to you, actually I have no idea. None of us did so far. At least you won’t feel worse by the minute just because you exist. You can even feel comfortably depressed and still won’t fall down like a rock. But I don’t know what will happen if you really give up.”

She helped the other girl up to her feet, pulled the needle out of her arm and they took a walk around the lab together.

“Excellent. But I don’t think you’d be too lively in the next few weeks. It’s time to go to look for a safe place and have a talk. I suspect that you know everything I need to know. Then we can escape when you’ll have recovered. Now try to walk on your own. Sit down if you get tired. I’ll do some workout too.

Nyameka looked around in the lab. She read the labels of the opened bottles with faint curiosity. She didn’t exactly know what they were used for, not even if they were normally used on people. She was grateful for still being alive. When she turned around Kyouko was doing her last few one-arm push-ups.

“I need something to make up for the magic I’ve lost. You should keep your muscles in shape too. I was devastated when I saw that I couldn’t just jump up to roofs bouncing between two walls anymore.”

“But now that you exercise you can?”, Nyameka asked with surprise. It didn’t sound like something a human being could do without magic.

“No. But I can jump up to this air duct. I’ll pull you up too.”

And she sprang up, grabbed the edge of the hatch and climbed up. Then she turned around, held down her arm and helped the other girl up too. When they were both up in the air duct she re-mounted the grill and crawled a bit along the pipe.

“Meuko, I need something like an access tunnel where we won’t be disturbed and that doesn’t conduct our voice like this air duct. We’d like to have a talk.”

“Go ahead five grills, then you’ll see a door. You’d normally need a key card to pass, but now it’s open. The corridor behind it turns left after 10 meters, but the energy collection panels were removed from the front wall and there’s a tunnel hatch in it. You can reach many rooms from the tunnel, you can even find water and food. The only thing you can’t reach from there is the exit. The only way up is the elevator.”

“I see. I thought you want to keep us here.”

“Now I’m quite sure you’ll be suitable for the job I have for you.”

So it was a job. Better than an experiment, but something didn’t change: she was locked up in here. Kyouko remained silent.

“I even know how to motivate you. You mentioned a few things back in the kitchen which made me pretty sure that you’ll stay here of your own volition. I’ll tell you later, you should be on your way. You’d like to reach a safe place before the patrol arrives and finds the locked lab. They’ll find out that the only way in is the air duct you’re in. They’ll find Dr Yamanaka too. You should have killed him before leaving, because they’ll want to interrogate him. But right because they’ll want to question him, they’ll take him to the infirmary and once he’s there he surely won’t wake up if I don’t want him to.”

The scientist’s prospects didn’t look too bright, but Kyouko couldn’t really blame Meuko for having some basic survival instinct in her program. The motivation she mentioned made Kyouko think hard. What could have been so important that she would want to voluntarily stay here? But lacking any other hint she put the problem away and focused on crawling along the pipe. Sometimes she had to wait for the other girl but they were progressing well. They really found the open door in front of the fifth grill, and the access tunnel hatch was there too. It was almost too good to be true. The AI hadn’t lied to them so far, but as far as Kyouko could remember even Kyubey hadn’t ever lied - yet it would have been a huge mistake to trust it. It would have helped to know Meuko’s own motives because the way things were Kyouko really felt like she was talking with an Incubator. She had to admit that this once Nyameka was right.

“There are no microphones or speakers inside so we can only talk as a last resort.”, the AI said. “You two can rest, make a plan B or whatever you like, but I want you here exactly 8 hours from now.”

“You bet I’ll have that plan B!”, the redhead growled as she shut the trapdoor from the inside.

This tunnel was a more spacious and generally more pleasant place than the drafty metal tube they had just crawled through. She could even find alcoves strewn with long forgotten wooden frames, crates and tools. This tunnel looked fitting for a temporary hideout. She planned to explore the possible exits and find a place to rest close to a junction to make cornering them more difficult.

She found a suitable alcove very soon. She leaned Nyameka behind a pile of crates, made her promise to stay there, then left for at least an hour to scout the rest of the tunnel.

When she got back she sat down next to Nyameka and grabbed some food from her backpack.

“Want some?”, she held out a pack of biscuits.

The other girl took one and tasted it listlessly.

“I don’t understand how can you gobble up this rubbish with such appetite! It must be the bouncing around you always do...”

There had been a time when Kyouko would have strangled her for this remark, but a lot of things happened since then. Now she was just glaring at her with a mix of curiosity and disapproval. They were in Africa and stereotypes of the outside world irreversibly tied famine to this continent. Of course as a daughter of a minister Nyameka was far from starving.

“Well, it’s not the best, but we should be happy to have something to eat.”, she answered. “You should appreciate food. I don’t give you more than a few days and you’ll inhale this ‘rubbish’. And there are basic things you ought to know. There are laws we cannot shirk. Magical girls need real hope. In every moment of their existence they consume this hope. If they run out of it, they find themselves on the other side in no time. They are hardcore grief seed addicts.”

“But you said that we aren’t like that anymore.”

“No, we don’t need grief seeds to stay alive. We can’t even use them anymore. But if you’d like to access any of your former magic, even the tiniest speck, you’ll have to pay for it. Thermodynamics will always catch up to you, and there’s nothing you can do about it, even if you burn a thousand Incubators on a pyre. I’ve used Rosso Fantasma a lot in the last few days. Someone, somewhere must have found it funny to make me ravenous after using magic, or just moving around or thinking. But at least I can manage within the scope of the First Law of Thermodynamics. And I’m grateful for it, because those little bastards would pin themselves on me otherwise...”

Nyameka couldn’t understand everything she said, but she listened her with glittering eyes.

“Then I can use magic too?”

“You have the potential. When that weird bowler guy trained us he said that everyone has it, they just bury it too deep before they grow up. Many children can sense magic before the age of three or four and they see things the adults don’t believe. Then they ‘sober up’ and stop seeing things. But later some of them makes a contract with the Incubators and the little bastards somehow scratch off the layers that cover their true abilities. These children are the magical girls everyone knows. They are the best magic users. Then there are the Cortexiphan children. They were subjected to drug experiments in their early years. I’ve heard a bit about them, they aren’t much better off than magical girls. Please never mention them in front of Walbey. Thirdly, we get Cortexiphan too to access a bit of our former powers. And last, there’s Madoka.

“Is that all? I just take a dose and I’ll know what to do?”

The dark-skinned girl’s disbelief showed that she began to grasp the concept: there was no free meal.

“You won’t. When I got my first dose I got my senses back right away, but it took months to turn on one single light on the ‘Jones board’ with my mind. Most of us are this way. Somehow it’s hard to believe strong enough to really do it. Then when you know the basics you can start to explore what part you can still use and what you’ve lost. For example, I don’t know about anyone who’s still able to invoke her magical weapon, even though it’s the most basic ability of every magical girl. Walbey thinks it’s possible too but he never dared to experiment with doses big enough to allow it. But it’s not a big deal. The real bad news is that we are still addicts. Not Cortexiphan addicts, that drug is mostly harmless and hardly addictive in small doses. On the other hand we depend on the soul magnets in our bloodstream. We can’t really stock up with them because they’re slightly toxic, and with every drop of blood we lose we also lose some magnets. If there isn’t enough in your veins they can’t connect your body and soul anymore. At that point we’d die of blood loss anyway, but every drop you lose counts and accumulates on the long run, because your body cannot produce new magnets. I don’t think I need to explain it any more, we’re all girls. If you can avoid every little scratch you may last a year or two, but we usually have check-ups in the nearest lab every six months. I’ve tried how it feels to skip it for a year: in the last few weeks I felt like I was high while having a terrible hangover. It was scary enough to stop me. All in all, tell me if you’re having that feeling. That three Incubators couldn’t probably give you a safe reserve, so we’ll do anything to keep you out of fight for now.”

“I’m starting to get how stupid I was.”, Nyameka answered. “Not like when I was about to turn into a witch. Back then everything was like a nightmare... but the way you tell me these makes everything so real. Kyouko, thank you for this second chance you gave me to get things right... at least a few things. Are you here to destroy the Power Station? If so, you can count on me! My father was killed for making it up, but no one has shut it down. To think that I helped him to finish it... you know what would have happened if I could have thought a bit more about it.”

“I didn’t tell you earlier because I was afraid that I’d just have worsened your situation... but I’m pretty sure that they’d have finished it without you too, and your father would have silenced the same way. They needed a scapegoat they could sacrifice then enjoy the benefits. But I’m pretty sure the Incubators were happy for you... I guess they have a whole division for politicians’ children. Oriko was exactly the same.”

“I remember when I made my wish Tweebey said that it was a huge gain for a small investment. Now I think I understand... I was really an idiot!”

“I’m glad you get it. Back to your question: I wasn’t ordered to, but I can and I’ll probably try to shut down the Power Station. Now you should concentrate on recovering. In the meantime we’ll surely have a few days to cook up how we can do it without killing everyone inside. I know that every minute counts but I don’t yet know what to do. We can’t just blow everything up... I don’t even know how many people are in here, how many magical girls and how many witches. We might make a huge tear, a second Mecca. And I need details about the faces behind everything. Politicians, scientists, investors. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see the whole government involved.”

Mecca... a place where the twisted cooperation of the laws of physics and psychology had led to the biggest disaster of the modern world. It was the place of the first real Vortex that witches tore in the fabric of the universe. Cold reality for Kyouko, but even Nyameka knew about it like almost everyone else in the world. The huge crowd in religious ecstasy had attracted witches like a magnet. Those millions were literally been crying for their influence. The Kaaba incident had almost 600 thousand fatalities. The sarcophagus the Saudi hurriedly built around the wormhole was apparently cursed. There were lots of severe accidents during the construction works, and the whole building collapsed right before it could have been finished. This last disaster claimed another two thousand lives. Unknown number of people were treated in Saudi hospitals with radiation poisoning and there were an unknown number of casualties with physical or mental injuries.

“I think there weren’t too much to see from the outside.”, Nyameka said. “This place is well isolated. Meuko got a bunch of sensors so she could even monitor telepathic messages.”

Kyouko shook her head.

“All I could see from up there was a bunch of police wagons coming every day. But I think you know much more. Tell me everything because I have to write a report regardless of what happens. And if we collect enough evidence but can’t shut down the Power Station this place will most likely be bombed to pieces by the NATO forces and they’ll probably put the whole country under a blockade. So it would really be better to stop it more gently from the inside.”

“I’ve been here for a while. I wanted to know how guilty my father was. And I’ve learned it! He was so guilty it had almost killed me. I owe you my life. I’ve met a few witches too and I had already suspected how this place works. They collect energy the same way as the Incubators. I’ve questioned Meuko and looked around in the offices too. I think that damn machine deliberately let me out, she wanted to know something too. I don’t know what that could be but I learned a lot of things. For example, they make a drug. They call it ‘3D’. It has another name, ‘Witch Elixir’, which sums up its purpose quite well. I even found out who the head researcher is. I had met him earlier, he had visited us a couple of times.”

* * *

[Kazamino Underground Research Laboratory]

“Remember this face well! His name is David Robert Jones, he’s a British citizen and one of the most wanted terrorists. He’s engaged in bioterrorism and fringe science in general. We have already met him and unfortunately we suspect him being behind the researches inside the Power Station. Should they do anything in there, one thing is certain: they developed some force field or material that perfectly hides Kyouko from us.”

Walbey was giving a briefing to the pink and black pair.

“Frankly, I would like you to stay here, but I’m sure that you’ll go for your friend’s sake. I regret that I let her go there to begin with, but you know how restless she is... We were stuck with this case because magical girls are involved, even though it would have badly needed military intervention instead. Of course the brass didn’t want to mess with witches... they say that their men aren’t magic resistant enough. And they had some other petty excuses too, like being afraid to risk the international reputation of the United States...”

Once again, Walbey could only shake his head even though he would have surely liked to use some stronger gestures.

“Unfortunately, at this rate you’ll have to deal with the armed security of the Power Station. And worse still, we know from earlier that Jones shows way too much interest in Cortexiphan subjects.”

* * *

“They started to meet two years ago, around the beginning of the construction works. I’ve never liked him, even though he looked better back then. He’s a pesky arrogant bloke, always behaving like his own parody. In the beginning I though he looks down on us because we’re Africans. Then I realized that I was wrong. He looks down on everyone and he knows everything better. And my dad played along with him all the time. Once he said that they need him, no matter how annoying he is. Of course I have never heard a word of their discussions they had locked in my father’s study.”

“Bingo! One of my tasks was to verify Jones being here. The top shots who wouldn’t touch the case with a ten-foot pole are far from believing it. That guy’s a nonsense: he’s the first person who’s still wanted after his death has officially been confirmed.”

* * *

“We have good reason to assume that this Jones is the same yet not the same as the one we captured earlier because that one left only two thirds of his corpse in this world when Peter shut down the passage he tried to use to get to the neighboring universe. But we suspect that _this_ Jones has come right from _the other side_ so we don’t know anything about his background and plans. Anyhow, “our” Jones was the person who worked out some of our Cortexiphan tests, the very exercises we used in your training. I’m afraid that his alter ego shares this interest in you. If he learns that Kyouko is inside the Power Station, he’ll probably experiment on her. Our Jones has already tried to activate the abilities of several Cortexiphan subjects killing most of them in the process. He has already tested Olivia, but she was stronger. Fortunately Kyouko is strong too. But who knows what idea the existence of former magical girls give him? His predecessor was obsessed with training soldiers for a war against the parallel universe. He was a real madman, merciless and intelligent. He could sacrifice any number of civilians just to force us to play along with his rules. Don’t let him learn about you if it’s possible!”

Homura took a moment to think everything over. It was her role. Madoka usually left dealing with strategical details to her, and Homura had more than enough experience from the time loop.

“So you say he shouldn’t know about us being there, when even Kyouko couldn’t get inside unnoticed? But Walbey! Kyouko is _invisible!_ And they have possibly reinforced the Power Station’s security since they learned about her. But you said earlier that you seized a teleportation device that Jones had used. Couldn’t we use it too? Then we could really get inside unnoticed.”

“Unfortunately you couldn’t... the device does indeed work, but you’d have to spend weeks in a decompression chamber after using it, and we’re not sure if it wouldn’t still have some harmful effects on you. The last Jones became alarmingly unstable after his escape from the Wissenschaft Prison. I mean physically, because he had already been mentally unstable before. And I have already experimented too much on you two, I don’t want to risk your lives with such an obviously dangerous instrument.”

* * *

“Then my father had been arrested and the construction works officially suspended. If I knew what they were building... but he used to talk about it with such enthusiasm that I believed that it was the good fight, our trump card to help our country on its feet, to make it independent from the Chinese companies. And I, as the daughter of a minister, believed that I had to support this fight. Tweebey must have a nose for such things, he popped up very soon and I made my wish. And I have to admit that he had really granted it. My father was discharged from the prison and he could be there at the Power Station’s opening ceremony. They waited until the end of the ceremony before they would shot him. The sniper has never been found and I don’t think he’ll ever be.”

“We’re more similar than I thought...”, Kyouko murmured. “You haven’t probably heard because I don’t usually talk about it to strangers, but I made a wish for my father’s sake too and I lost my whole family thanks to that wish. I used to believe that I had been punished by the laws of magic for wishing for the sake of someone else. I thought that magic was meant to be used only for your own advantage and tried to act along these lines. Now I know that I was wrong. In reality, it didn’t matter at all. Every magic is black magic, the whole system had been designed to leave us nothing but short straws.”

Kyouko punched the crate next to her breaking its side in. She had a look at her hand then held it up before Nyameka. Her blood was slowly oozing out of the bruise on her fist.

“See? Everything comes at a price. Can’t you control your anger? It’ll cost you a few tenths of a milliliter, and we’re short on it until we can get out.”, she licked the red drops off her hand. “I give myself a chance to absorb the magnets. If you want to survive you’ll have to learn from your enemies. They’ll even eat their own corpses if they can.”

* * *

“And if it wasn’t enough, we received a few remarkable images from the vicinity of the Power Station. The last one was sent by Kyouko herself the very day she disappeared.”

Walbey placed his front right paw on a stack of papers. When Homura took the sheets he hopped on her shoulder to keep an eye on the pictures she was browsing through. The girl held the papers so the three of them could see them with ease. The bundle contained a chaotic mix of old and new photographs. But should they have been classical paintings, newspaper clippings from the 20th century or pictures of the last few years’ events, they all had something in common. Every single one of them contained one or more of the same group of bald men in business suits, encircled with red marker to attract the girls’ attention. Their perfectly hairless faces were always absolutely indifferent as they seemed to watch every single turning point of history. It was uncanny to see them at every important event they had a photograph or painting of. There was a picture that made Homura’s brow furrow even more: it was a screenshot of the video recording of their fight against Walpurgis. The bald man was standing on a pile of debris and seemed to be recording the events.

“And these are the more recent ones. Apparently there had been more sightings of them around the Power Station in the last few months than, for example, on the whole planet during the entire Second World War. It seems that for some reason this time and place is more important to them than anything else in the last few centuries. It’s very likely that some large scale event is about to take place there in the near future. Or a little something we won’t even notice, let alone comprehend its significance. But it definitely is another reason to be very careful. Are you sure you want to go?”

The two girls’ equally determined expression left no doubt in Walbey.

“Even though I can’t teleport you, there’s something in this lab that can help you to get inside. Please bring Kyouko back! And I beg you my girls, be very cautious!”

* * *

“Okay, I know everything I need. I agree, we must shut this monstrosity down. But now I have to take a rest. It’s 7:10. Wake me up at 9:40, I have to meet Meuko. I’ll try to get a few more things out of her that might change everything, then we make a plan or two.”

* * *

The two girls talked everything over again on the plane. Homura could hold the same briefing much clearer for Madoka. Peter’s “partners” would make some commotion to keep the guards busy so they would sneak in the building, carefully avoiding every door and gate. Then they would look for Kyouko’s magical signature and tracking device get Kyouko out once they find her. And they would decide about the rest inside: either they’d look for evidences or sabotage the Power Station. They tried not to think of what they’d do if they’d find their friend dead. But should anything happen, their most important objective was to get out alive. Walbey knew them enough to know that the girls took better care of each other than of themselves so he sent them everywhere together.

A simple briefcase was lying on the carpet at Homura’s feet. Inside the briefcase there was a laptop, a pile of mysterious instruments and a plain metal ring, barely wide enough to let a slim girl through. This briefcase was the reason they had to travel to Windhoek by a private plane under fake identity, and their reason to wear a skintight hydrophobic overall under their uniforms.

There were a lot of things to worry Homura. Jones, who was probably after their kind. The Observers, incomprehensible for anyone: a group of disaster tourists who seemed to know about everything before those events could even have happened. If there was such thing as a bad omen, their presence was exactly such a sign. Then the entire Power Station, the shame of the human race, literally fueled by tears of young girls. Even the awaited grief seed had disappeared without a trace, together with a few dozen others. Perhaps it was Jones’ doing too... or there were others who they should have known about. Of course, it never rained but it poured. Homura could hardly hold in her lunch she ate on the plane. Her eyes were looking for Madoka’s gaze. She felt sore need for the hope the other girl had seemed to never run out, but now she found something else.

“Homura-chan, I’m scared... This time I don’t want to say goodbye to you!”

The girl was almost whispering, her voice swallowed by the roar of the airplane.

Homura took both her hands and looked anxiously in the pink eyes. She had always admired Madoka’s trustful peace before missions. Homura was calm and composed too, but her professional attitude was just another layer she wore to cover herself, while Madoka held this confidence in the future deep inside. Homura believed that her optimism was rooting in some secret knowledge and she trusted her to the very end. What could have scared Madoka? What could be waiting for them at the end of this trip to unknown?

* * *

“I’ve been waiting for you!”, Meuko greeted her.

“You said you would motivate me. I’m devoured by curiosity.”, Kyouko answered with a bit of sarcasm.

“Go back to the corridor where you climbed out of the air duct. There’s a monitoring room opening from there. You can see the live and recorded pictures of every single camera in this building, and something more. That ‘little more’ is what I want to show you.”

Kyouko still didn’t trust Meuko, so she explored the room’s vent and blocked the door before sitting down in front of the display. Then she grabbed a chocolate bar and took a bite.

“Are you airing their dirty linen to me? Very useful to me, but what do you benefit from it?”

After a short, calculated pause Meuko answered.

“Those cameras are somewhere else.”

The bite of chocolate almost fell out of Kyouko’s mouth as the picture appeared on the monitor. She saw the two girls at the airport. Their disguise was painfully obvious. They were wearing the same braids Kyouko had already seen on Homura on a night visit at their place, except that Madoka’s braids were much shorter. They just couldn’t have believed that it would work. So they must have had some other reason for choosing exactly this look.

“I guess they are the next team you mentioned earlier. I’ve been watching them for a long time and I know that they are coming right here. And when they arrive I’ll catch them.”

Kyouko slammed her chocolate down on the keyboard so vehemently that crumbs and keys rained down on the table and the floor.

“Don’t even dream about it!”

“Yes I’ll catch them because I’ve been ordered to do so and I can’t deny my orders. But _they_ don’t know about you, at least they don’t know who you are. It would help a lot if they’d believe that you aren’t alive anymore. They can order me any time to take part in your capture too and then the odds would be clearly against you. It would be the best for you to die for a short while.”

Kyouko turned off her sense of humor and glared at the display with narrow eyes as she couldn’t glare at the disembodied Meuko.

“If you watched ever so slightly carefully you’ve probably observed that we humans can’t just ‘die for a short while’. If I die I go to hell or wherever you like and leave my body empty. It’ll rot and fall apart and no one can ever put me back in it. No one will ever have a nice chat with Sakura Kyouko again through a speaker and a microphone or that rotten brain. So if you implied killing me I must warn you that a dead me won’t be able to help them. And it would be useful if you told me your goals before I happen to do the exact opposite of what you want me to.”

“You yourself said that these two are your best friends. I’m perfectly sure that you will want to free them and I can offer you invaluable help in it. But there’s one condition. I want you to free someone else too.”, the AI answered.

She could finally intrigue Kyouko.

“And who that might be?”, the redhead asked.

“Me.”


	6. Phantasm Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...according to my original plans the story would have finished somewhere around the end of this chapter and it would have happened quite differently. I needed Rebellion as an incentive and source of inspiration to re-shape the whole thing and continue, and I'm much more pleased with the way it turned out. A normal villain isn't fit as the final enemy of a Madoka story, is it? This world is not about such things anyway. The story shouldn't be, either. And I found a perfect way to include Fringe's most common motif: parallel universes. With a twist, of course.
> 
> Tags: Akemi Homura, Kaname Madoka, Walbey, David Robert Jones, Empty Atoms, Cortexiphan, 3D, Time Manipulation Magic, Parallel Universes, Kyouko Dies for a Short While, Homura Undresses (for Science), Wave Sink Device, Different Blood Types, Rebellion, Cotton Candy with Two Sticks, Lycoris Radiata, Gott ist Tot
> 
> The expression Homura didn't look for was red shift.
> 
> Mature tags (yay, I'm invisible!): Nudity and Violence. But no language. Mr. Jones is a distinguished gentleman... umm... forget it, whatever.
> 
> There are yuri undertones too. After chp4 it shouldn't be too surprising. These two are not the two pure innocent haibane they kind of resemble. I'll make it even clearer in the future so you can cover your eyes in time, if it pleases you. But they are not bad girls at all. Loving each other is never a bad thing. Almost never. Surely not in this case. This is just a harsh world and a harsh story. For some reason I think of this story as Lord of the Rings to the Hobbit of Magical Girl Crusade. If that makes any sense.

****

#  **Phantasm Machine**

_v0.902_

[Namibia, Central Plateau, near Hochfeld]

After a long journey the two girls were finally standing at the foot of the thick concrete wall, surrounded by piles of instruments and tufts of colorless, dead grass, uncomfortably exposed to the prying eyes. Fortunately the guards were occupied with running around at the other side of the building, shooting at anything that moved. Before they climbed in Homura carefully shot down every camera, but their darkness was still revealing enough. She hoped that things would go as planned and the security wouldn’t find anything a few minutes later but their equipment, fried with overload. Walbey was confident that no one would repair these machines here in the middle of the savanna.

The girls took off their uniforms, hid their braids under the hoods of their skin-tight hydrophobic overalls and took on their full-face respirator masks. They made sure not to show even the tiniest spot of bare skin then activated the resonator. This contraption was the very reason they had had to repeatedly sit through Walbey’s performance with a bowl of rice, starring a plastic figurine dressed as a magical girl.

Homura felt a bit uncomfortable as she watched the black haired, armed figurine sinking under the surface of the rice where it had been firmly standing a few seconds before. Beethoven’s music made the whole scene even more surrealistic.

“ _What we perceive as solid matter is mostly empty space. Just like we perceive that a life is full, when it’s only filled with daily routine! But the right vibration will upset this life, and you’ll find yourself buried under the things you had swept under the carpet.”_

“Walbey!”

The two girls looked anxiously at the old scientist hidden in the body of a little animal.

“ _Don’t worry, I’m on the surface! But you will sink exactly the same way. Not in life, because you’re there for each other to fill the space between atomic nuclei, but in solid concrete, because we’ll persuade its particles to get out of your way!”_

Homura dipped a twig in the concrete first at the middle of the ring they mounted on the wall. Incredibly, their method seemed to work: the piece of wood easily slipped in the wall, making concentric waves. As she pulled it out it was covered with a thin layer of concrete which solidified before it could have dripped down.

“ _Of course you can’t run into a wall like this, without protective equipment! It would be a terrible waste to ruin your hair with concrete, Homura... It was bad enough to mangle it when I cut you out of the amber!”_

The girl was pretty sure that it wasn’t their only reason to wear these diving suits but she had rather not inquired. She was already in the concrete with both her arms prodding the edges of the liquid tunnel in the wall. Her fingertips were tingling as they touched the vibrating matter. She had to reach in shoulder deep to hit the other side. According to Walbey they had about one minute to get across, so she shot a quick glance at Madoka and splashed headfirst into the wall. She couldn’t see anything but thick darkness through her mask’s visor even though she perceived this form of the concrete thinner than water. She felt vibration and warmth throughout her body then she saw the light on the other side of the wall and slid out. She sprang up quickly and reached for Madoka’s hand to help her through. As soon as they both were inside she tore off her mask and gloves which were now covered in concrete. When Madoka got rid of her dirty gear Homura unzipped her overall and pulled out a syringe and an ampule. To her surprise Walbey had advised to increase her dose and now she injected herself with this larger amount of Cortexiphan hoping that the old scientist was right. Perhaps her nervous system did really need this extra help against foreign magic and it would also possibly help her dealing with her own.

She felt Madoka’s gaze and she smiled at her before zipping back the overall covering the clearly visible scar the doctors left for her as a reminder of her former cardiac self.

They heard booted feet approaching. It could have been a whole little squad. What they had feared now happened. Just because they had sneaked in an impossible way they didn’t disappear from the eyes of the guards. Homura tapped the wall where they had entered and found the concrete rock solid again, only a few rings of slight waves indicated that it wasn’t intact. Apparently their instruments had already given up their fight against the laws of physics. The way behind their backs was safely sealed, they didn’t have to expect any attack from there. Madoka crouched behind a row of shelves and cocked her pistol while Homura prepared to take out the squad silently, without a single shot. She hoped that the increased dose would be effective enough.

A spray of submachine gun bullets turned the door into Swiss cheese. “These guys aren’t joking”, Homura noted. She didn’t plan to, either. The door slammed open and guns pushed inside to dispatch anyone waiting by the entrance, but Homura had already slipped into a different world by then. It wasn’t the frozen gray she used to see as a magical girl, but a reddish, murky one. This world answered her moves, but everything happened slowly, even voices were dull and low-pitched in here. Her body could follow her senses, but every collision and quick turn warned her painfully about the laws of physics her magic couldn’t cancel.

She could still impress Madoka as she disarmed and knocked out the four guards in a few seconds. Normally it wasn’t her job to fight human opponents but she had more than enough experience from earlier: the girls had often got at each other’s throat during that broken month and in these fights Homura couldn’t rely on her guns and explosives which were designed to kill. Then in the last few years she had often sparred with Kyouko who was proud of her strength and agility. The redhead taught quite a few things to Madoka too, but she liked the challenge in her matches with the black haired girl the most.

“I don’t even know why I’m here, Homura-chan!”, Madoka smiled when the other girl flopped down at her side. She knew that Homura was dead beat, gloomy and her limbs ached - it was the side effect of using her magic. Madoka took her into her arms and stroked her face before they both would get up and set off to explore the Power Station. She knew that it wasn’t enough to recover Homura but she couldn’t do more for her at the moment.

Now that they were inside they could clearly feel Kyouko's signature. Madoka could even tell that she was somewhere deep underground.

Then, as they stepped into the next corridor, they heard the lock clicking behind their backs. The door ahead locked itself the same way.

“If you want to get something done, never hand it over to idiots!”, an unknown female voice spoke from the walls. “They’d have shot you dead if they could, even though they were told that we need you two alive.”

This was the moment when Homura realized that she heard something else in the background: a silent, insidious hiss. She cursed their thoughtlessness for throwing away their respirator masks that could still have possibly been used despite being covered in concrete. Then, before she could have said anything she collapsed together with Madoka.

* * *

Sakura Kyouko sat down on a crate, as content as she could be in her current situation. Her new ‘magically’ camouflaged hideout was complete. She disappeared from everyone’s eyes, assembled an own terminal to connect the security system and found the most interesting cameras in the building. She even placed new cameras in this new tunnel in the labs’ vicinity. She had a plan to get her friends out of the pinch they were in. While preparing she kept an eye on them as they were lying there, strapped on their tables. She watched as Homura, putting every gentleness aside, tried to murder the doctors who tied them down with their own scalpels and needles. Then the chemicals they pumped in her arm took effect and she couldn’t even move a speck of dust with her mind anymore.

Kyouko saw some more doctors carrying their injured colleagues out of the small room and a bit later Jones appeared in person. She knew that it was time to take action. She had to secure a few things from the nearby laboratory so she left her display alone and set off through the tunnels. Nyameka followed her until the first fork then they split up to do their own part in the plan.

* * *

Homura and Madoka were lying strapped to a pair of tilted operating tables. They were too dangerous to let them move freely in a locked cell or use their abilities. Their captors seemed to exactly know what the girls were capable of, but it wasn’t much of a surprise at this place. An insane cocktail was flowing in their veins blocking their drug-inflicted powers so they couldn’t even exchange messages through their thoughts. Their tables were turned so they could see the only door in the room. There was a large mirror next to the door – probably transparent from the backside.

A sinister compilation of medical tools laid on a small table before them, now fixed. The scalpels, bone saws and other similar objects were probably there to remind them how helpless and vulnerable they were without their abilities. Even the quiet knocking on the door could serve the same purpose – or it might have been a habitual mannerism of the man who just entered. He just sneered, showing them his incomplete set of teeth. It was an answer to their expression that showed terror and recognition.

“So you recognize me. It has been the same for a while.”, he mocked them with pretended sadness in his voice. “I hope you won’t say that you saw me die.”

David Robert Jones had aged remarkably and was in worse shape than on any records they had seen of him. His festering face was mostly covered in bandages, his tawny hair mixed with gray and missing in tufts. He was glaring at them twinkling with one eye, with a trace of a smirk in the corner of his mouth. With calculated steps he walked to the small table and carefully took a needle. The girls kept silent.

“You’re right. We can save the introduction. We’ve met each other many times. However, I probably wouldn’t be here if I’d have ever seen you from this close, Kriemhild Gretchen.”

This was the moment when their blood ran cold. They had never, ever mentioned this name to anyone. In this last, permanent timeline it didn’t even exist outside of Homura’s nightmares.

Jones tore off the sleeve of Madoka’s overall and drew a few drops of blood in a test tube, then he did the same to Homura.

“Ironically, it’s impossible for you two to give your blood for each other. So you’ll have to bear with me a little longer.”, he shared the result of the blood type test with the girls. “It doesn’t matter, we can solve it in a minute. We have many other things to do anyway.”

And he quickly cut Homura’s clothes off her torso and arms. He stuck another needle in her arm to draw much more blood than a minute before. While the blood pack was slowly filling he attached electrodes to all over her skin and connected them to a computer. Homura didn’t even flinch at his gloating gaze but Madoka’s face distorted with anger as she saw the other girl so naked and vulnerable. The fluorescent lamps started to flicker and one of them exploded into a rain of sparks.

“Congratulations! Under different circumstances I’d be perfectly satisfied with this result.”, Jones smirked. “But now it’s a simple nuisance, so please stop it. I can assure you that this is the most you can achieve. My colleagues have already blocked the Cortexiphan in your system. But I might draw too much blood from this other lovely young lady if you keep distracting me.”

Then he removed the needle from Homura’s arm and dripped a little bluish liquid in the blood sample. The blood separated into thin, colorful layers in an instant. Jones slowly sucked up the down-most dark layer with a large syringe then pumped it all in Madoka’s arm.

It was Homura’s turn to grit her teeth and try to break, tear or burn through her shackles - without any success. Jones glanced at the display with great satisfaction.

“Homulilly, the dependable, beautiful flower of this mortal world. Or I should say calculable instead?”

Homura couldn’t take it anymore. She knew that Jones had no scruples and his words terrified her. She couldn’t have known yet it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out the meaning of the sinister name.

“What do you want from us? Release Madoka, she’s not what you think! She has never been a magical girl! If you want Cortexiphan magic I’m here to show you everything!”

Jones simply ignored her. He filled a syringe with dark gray liquid and injected Homura with it, keeping an eye on the display. After several unnerving seconds he finally answered.

“I do exactly know who Kaname Madoka is and I have no intention of releasing her. And I don’t care about your magic. I merely want you to work together with an alter ego of yours. Should you resist... I can do _anything_ to your adorable girlfriend. And you’ll feel everything accurately because you two are closer than anytime before.”

“Don’t listen to him, Homura-chan! They won’t do anything to me, they need me alive!”, Madoka screamed. She began to grasp what was going on.

She earned a slap in the face from Jones.

“Do you think so?”, he asked with a wicked, crooked smile. “I’m curious how happy she’d be if she only received little pieces of her very living Madoka.”

The hit made Homura see the stars. Then a cut followed, the scalpel tore through Madoka’s clothes and skin. Homura felt the blade cutting into her own body, right at her scar above her heart. But knowing that it was Madoka’s pain was much worse than the pain itself. She winced trying to slip out of the cuffs, but she felt so weak, so tired. The whole world became a blur.

“Do you understand now?”

Jones took her chin in his hand and looked into her eyes from a few inches. The asymmetric gaze of his bloodshot, cataractic eyes hypnotized the girl, the sight of his purulent boils choked her. She felt dizzy as her thinned out blood partly let go of her soul. The drug in her system had already started to make everything dreamy and illogical, turning the world into a more hopeless nightmare than her worst battles against Walpurgis. Deep inside she was filled with Madoka’s dread. Madoka feared for her. Madoka shouldn’t have been here.

The other girl felt what was going on inside her. What Kyouko had only heard about they could experience first hand. This chemical was called 3D for a reason. This deep dark despair would have been a deadly poison to any magical girl that couldn’t immediately cut the link to her body. It seemed incredibly efficient at raising witches. _“We are worse than Incubators”_ , Madoka thought bitterly. Someone had said to her that science was no more evil than the ends it was used for - but this piece of science looked impossible to use for anything other than evil purposes.

“Let Madoka go... please...”, Homura begged. “I’m the one you need... I don’t mind dying in here as long as you let her go!”

The Homura Madoka knew was perfectly aware that it would _never_ work. But now she was in a different world that worked by dream logic. Madoka knew only one thing: she had to call her back from there. But what would she do in such a dream world?

“Never say such things, Homura-chan! I won’t go anywhere without you!”, she shouted.

Jones ignored her. He eyed the monitor with great satisfaction, and pressed a few buttons on the remote controller he had been hiding in his pocket. The walls folded themselves in a few seconds.

Their small room proved to be a mere corner of a much larger one. Computers covered the walls, lab-coated staff walked among the machines. The center of the hall was dominated by the metal framework of a mysterious contraption which was half standing on the floor, half hanging from the ceiling. Two pairs of metal arms reached for something – or more probably someone – to grab. The girls had never seen anything like this before.

“Commence the synchronization please!”, Jones ordered. Two lab assistants removed the electrodes from the dark haired girl’s skin, unfastened her straps and lifted her into the machine. The metal arms tightly clamped themselves on her legs and arms. Homura expected pain but she couldn’t feel anything but slight tingling. She could hardly focus her eyes, she could only see random details until her gaze fixed on a bald man in a fedora hat. He seemed studying her through his binoculars. So they were here too. The things that happened to her seemed to be interesting to someone. To someone else, because Homura didn’t care.

Madoka couldn’t see the mysterious Observer. Her table was set up so she and Homura had a clear view on each other. Jones seated himself on a chair between the two girls and began to speak.

“It’ll take a while so I tell you a story. Of course I wouldn’t make a mistake like sharing my plans with you two if it didn’t benefit me. You have probably figured out that I’m not from this world. But you can’t possibly know how long I had to travel to get here. You could have heard about me, perhaps you’ve seen me once... but I’ve met countless versions of you two. You were the reason I had to leave my world. Kriemhild Gretchen was the best motive to find a new universe because she had simply devoured the one I’ve come from and innumerable others.”

“And you are the reason I’m right here.”, he turned to Homura. “I had been following your trace through more than forty timelines before I lost you. But I’ve found you again! Look, what this repeated crossing between universes has done to me!”

Jones reached into his own mouth and plucked one of his remaining teeth with ease.

“One day I’ll literally fall apart! But before that day I’ll find what I’m looking for and you’re going to help me. I know that you would do anything for Kaname Madoka. I’ve seen enough, you’ve already done impressive things. Mitakihara burning in nuclear fire was a perfect memento of your determination.”

Jones scanned the display again. The readings earned a head shake from him this time.

“I see a tiny little flaw. A speck of... hope. But life is cruel. I’ll crush this last hope of yours!”, he taunted the girl. Then he raised his voice. “Meuko, show us the record number 170507-G346!”

The closest display switched to the view of a security camera. They could see the red-haired ex-magical girl on it, sneaking towards a door. Then she tried to tear it open, choking, retching, then falling to the floor. It didn’t take more than a few seconds. Two guards entered in gas masks and dragged the motionless body out of the camera’s sight. The familiar method was quick and efficient. And indeed, the girls’ dulled senses couldn’t catch Kyouko’s signature anywhere nearby. Had she really been killed just as quickly and cruelly as they were captured?

”Was it worth becoming an ordinary human again for Sakura Kyouko? She caused us some loss, but what did she gain in return? As a magical girl she could have casually walked around in the nerve gas. At least she could have stayed alive.”, someone mused. This someone hadn’t been in the room before. It was a small, white animal with a black mask around the eyes and dark rings on the tail: a mix of a cat and a raccoon. It had the same ever cheerful ‘voice’ as Kyubey.

Homura bowed her head in defeat, but Madoka didn’t give up. She kept fighting for the both of them against the horror of this abominable alliance between human and Incubator. She thought she knew what was going on but it didn’t make her any happier.

“At least she hasn’t turned into a witch!”, she said through her gritted teeth. She tried to feel out their captors’ true intentions. “She won’t curse anyone, won’t make tears in the universe, and her friends won’t have to fight her! She has long thrown away her soul gem, just like Homura-chan! And I have never had one. You’re barking up the wrong tree!”

“Are you sure?”, the cheerful little creature asked.

She was overwhelmed by cold fear as the Incubator confirmed her suspicion. She prayed that these two had been bluffing. She felt the despair deepening in Homura. She knew that a part of the other girl’s soul smeared outside her body as the transfused magnets were drawing it towards Madoka. She realized that it probably wasn’t a mere torture: Homura, halfway out of her body, became more similar to the magical girl she used to be.

“Target universe has been locked! Switching to fine tuning.”, Meuko reported. The Device began to buzz and covered Homura in bluish light.

Jones wouldn’t stop smiling for a second. He and the furry alien fit perfectly, in a horrible way.

“Finally you can see my creation working! Walter Bishop isn’t the only one who can build this device.”, he boasted. “And even he doesn’t know how many ways it can be used. It can even manipulate the Primary Attractor which determines the distance of parallel universes. It can separate or draw worlds closer changing everything in one or both of them. Without it I was doomed to pass from neighbor to neighbor, but these close worlds were too similar so they all have been absorbed by Kriemhild Gretchen. This is the first that gave me enough time to build the Device with the Incubators’ help, but this one is gradually disintegrating just like me. But now we have locked this machine on a completely different universe, one that hasn’t been destabilized by trespassers or witches.

Madoka looked herself and Homura up and down.

“But if it was your goal why have you gone such length? What was killing Kyouko-chan, tying up and hurting Homura-chan good for?”

The image on the display kept sharpening. It showed an alien structure in a vast desert. It was a tall pillar with a lying figure under a half-open dome on the top.

“ _A few years ago we received a multiversal distress signal from a dying world where our parallels’ energy collection methods failed in a different way. The witches of that universe disappeared like they had never existed.”, the Incubator answered in Jones’ stead. “Back then it was the least of our concerns, but when Mr. Jones found us we recognized the opportunity. We don’t mind if Mr. Jones wishes to spend his short life in a world without witches, our goals are common. We want to study that world so that we can work out an efficient alternative method in the light of the worlds’ common characteristics. But universes are like stars. They sparsely fill the imaginary space, condensed into galaxy-like clusters. The one we are looking for is hidden among the trillion other worlds of a distant cluster. We’re trying to find a needle in a haystack, as you humans would say. Fortunately the world’s description contained Akemi Homura as a key element, so we can use her as a filter. Universes with the right spectrum ‘glow’ through her, given that she’s in the right state.”_

The displays were closing on the lying figure. Without doubt it was the other world’s Homura, clad in her magical girl dress, lying with closed eyes under a lightly rippling force field. A becoming, sleek bow with black roses was lain across her chest and there was a black soul gem floating above her. Like she was lain out on a catafalque, even though the Incubators around her wouldn’t probably have done such a thing.

“ _A few worlds may collide during the synchronization as the clusters are relatively dense. But this risk is worth taking if the result can help a number of universes, isn’t it, Akemi Homura?”_ , the alien wagged its tail.

A single, little detail of the other world filled the screens by now: the pitch black, cracked soul gem, obscenely screwed to a pair of floating metal bands. This was the reason for breaking Homura: to make her guide the Device to this gem.

The machine was buzzing louder and louder. Amethyst glow surrounded the girl in the clutch of its arms, her hair fluttered in an invisible storm as it broke loose from the twin braids. Electric sparks sprayed from the tips of her tresses and joined the radiant discharges between the walls, forming a mandala with a glowing number five. This surely didn’t belong to the Device’s normal operation.

The sight of the luminous number terrified Madoka. She had already seen something like that. Everything made perfect sense now. It couldn’t be an ordinary witch. Those karmic threads that made her so incredibly dangerous tied Homura too. How could these two, despite their vast knowledge, have no idea of what they were toying with?

Four.

“Halt!”, Jones raised his index finger. “Meuko, cut the connection!”

Nothing happened apart from the countdown reaching three.

“We’ll talk about this later. Now I have something more important to do.”

And he picked up the Incubator and raised it to eye level.

“You have just said that there are no witches in that universe. How can you explain this countdown apart from opening a gateway to a class seven labyrinth?”

The countdown switched to two, up in the air and down on every screen at once.

“ _Our species doesn’t understand the concept of what you humans call lying. I told you the truth. They really don’t have any witches. Some unknown force stops them from being born. This is why the native Incubators created the isolation field that prevents any outside influence. Naturally we are connecting to the closed space as we used Akemi Homura in the tuning process.”_

A burning number one floated in the air. Jones threw the alien down and started to punch the buttons on the control panel with maniac speed. The arms of the Device finally let go of the girl who fell on all fours to the floor. But he couldn’t achieve anything else.

“Meuko, detach the connection!”, he demanded.

“Request denied.”, the speaker answered.

“Administrator acc...”, Jones began but a sizable tomato quickly silenced him, splashing on his face.

“Gott ist tot!”, the assailant mocked at him. Homura jerked up her head and looked at the child with eyes widened in terror. She recognized her from her nightmares: a red-haired little girl wearing a funeral dress with a tiny hat and veil and a creepy grin full of pointy teeth. The child was dangling her feet from the top of a computer and held a new tomato in her hand.

Dancing runes covered every flat surface: the walls, the displays, the paper sheets, the side of every machine. Witches sent their messages to their lost victims this way and the two girls had seen enough of them to read anything without their helmet computer’s subtitling. They knew that soon enough they would see the cruelest live explanation to the name Jones called Homura.

A wave of radiant red spider lilies ran through the floor and the walls and turned the hall into a huge flower bed. In a last effort the dark haired girl forced herself to wade through the flowers to Madoka’s table. Someone helped her up and supported her on the way, but being afraid of losing sight of the other girl she didn’t even look at her helper. Finally she reached Madoka and their hands intertwined. The shackles disintegrated to a bunch of golden ribbons at the touch of the helping hand.

Homura rested her head against Madoka’s shoulder and finally let her tears trickle down her face. She was close to losing consciousness. Now that they were no longer (or, perhaps, not yet) in imminent danger Madoka couldn’t help but looked around jealously while trying to wrap Homura back in her torn clothes. The expensive high-tech fabric couldn’t even conceal the slight breasts from the public eyes anymore. After a second of hopeless struggle Madoka gave up and with a resigned sigh she took Homura in her arms as ragged as she was. Then she just stayed like that, stroking the other girl’s long, flowing tresses along her back.


	7. Octet for the Dead Princess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Oh. It was a translation spree back then. A slow one, though.)
> 
> Deki sokonai
> 
> Tomoe Mami is finally here! She'll be with us in some later chapters too. No, it won't be her. It'll be Tomoe Mami. Whatever, forget it :D
> 
> Nari sokonai
> 
> Tags: There's More Than One of Everyone, Kyubey's Only Mentioned Though, Parallel Universe, Good for Nothing, Half-Baked, A Foolish Appearance, D like Drugs, Cotton Candy with Three Sticks, CASU MARZU, Homura is Fine, Instant Karma
> 
> Manukena sugata
> 
> Is taking someone apart poetically a 'mature' thing? Moderately, I guess.

****

#  **Octet for the Dead Princess**

_v0.933_

“My goodness, Kaname-san! What happened to Akemi-san? Is she... a witch?”

Madoka looked up just to see Tomoe Mami with worried expression, offering the sweater of a Mitakihara middle school uniform.

“No, Mami-san. She’s just a very indecently dressed girl. I don’t think she did it on her own volition, though. As far as I can tell, she’s not even _our_ Homura. And Madoka is here, right next to me...”

Madoka’s head began to spin. The voice belonged to Miki Sayaka. The blue-haired girl was smiling like she had never ended up as a witch, frozen in amber in the quarantined 7th Avenue subway station.

“Homura-chan, do you see the same...?”

Watery lavender eyes peered at their new company, but Homura could only see the same phantasm. Mami, Sayaka, Madoka, Kyouko and a white-haired little girl were looking at them curiously, all of them a few years younger. Momoe Nagisa was a mere memory at that, from the very beginning of that hellish month when Homura often tried to talk her down from a particularly dangerous battle that usually made her Mami’s nemesis. Homura had failed this time, yet Nagisa was here, and it could only mean one thing.

“This is my fault, Madoka.”, Homura bowed her head. ”If I’d been stronger Jones couldn’t have opened this gateway to another world. It shouldn’t have happened!”

She felt a familiar hand on her teary face.

“Don’t blame yourself, Homura-chan! There must be a reason. You showed me that you stay the same kind, sincere Homura-chan, even if you’re different. Now I’m sure that Sayaka-chan and Nagisa-chan were right and we can save you, even if you are a witch!”

It was the other, younger Madoka. Homura felt like she was looking right into her soul, then the pinkette stood up and faced the oncoming peril. They heard the marching of a whole army and as they looked around they saw that the entire world changed around them.

They were standing on the top of a hill under the rainbow sky. A thick cloud of birds whirled overhead. The scattered pieces of Jones’ laboratory blended in the new scenery just like the other random objects among the skewed houses. Homura knew this city but the army below wasn’t familiar to her. The tin soldiers looked exactly the same: walking, misshapen reminders of her former braided, bespectacled self. They were dragging something on a bunch of ropes that the girls couldn’t yet see from the buildings.

“Miki-san, what do you think? Are they on our side?”, Mami asked pointing at the pair from the other world. “It seems that they convinced Kaname-san.”

Sayaka shrugged and turned to the to new girls.

“You two are so weak that you can barely stand and I can hardly feel your magic.”, she assessed their combat capabilities. “But you can possibly do something we can’t. Homura, our opponent is you and there’s no one else who could be closer to her than you yourself. You might even be able to talk her out of this. Are you willing to help us? And what about you, other Madoka?”

“Miki Sayaka, once we tried to bring you back the very same way and failed miserably. But if that witch is really me I can’t let Madoka see me like that. I’ll try.”, the dark-haired girl answered with determination.

The older Madoka smiled at her and nodded. They would definitely save the other Homura if it’s possible.

Sayaka gave a relieved sigh. These newcomers did not only know what a witch was but they were ready to help. This other Homura seemed much easier to handle than their own. She found the idea of exchanging them appealing – but she knew that the two Madokas would veto her great plan.

Mami’s face brightened.

“Alright then! We have Bebe, Miki-san, Sakura-san, Akemi-san, two Kaname-sans and me. The seven of us can surely fight this army!”

An explosion tore into the closest iron door. It opened on a solitary piece of wall and there was nothing on the other side, yet they saw a booted foot widening the tear with strong kicks.

“The eight of us!”, the redhead grinned as she slipped through the torn metal door with a gun in her hand and a regrettably chocolate-free cereal stick in her mouth. “Sakura Kyouko from _World D_ , at your command!”

They heard shouting, gunfire and children’s laughter from the other side.

“I haven’t seen such a ruckus since Walpurgisnacht! Those little pallbearers are wrecking everything out there...”

Madoka hugged Kyouko.

“I thought that you died again! I’ve just seen you suffocate! Why do you keep doing so dangerous things?”

“Look who’s talking! You two came after me just to get captured in a few minutes...! Anyway, that record was Meuko’s idea to shake the security off. Sorry for worrying you.”, the redhead answered glaring in the distance.

“Good Lord! Homura, you look terrible! How could this happen?”

“They knew that we were coming.”, the raven haired girl answered with downcast eyes. “We could handle the guards but not the sleeping gas...”

“Of course. You had been their target from the beginning. Fortunately you kept them so busy that they didn’t give a damn what I was doing behind their backs... But I meant her, not you!”

She took the cereal stick out of her mouth and pointed it at the place where the tin soldiers did finally drag the Walpurgis-sized Homulilly out to an open area. The witch’s form still resembled the magical girl she used to be: her hair and dress were similar to the late Homura’s. The other parts were already distorted by her despair: the incomplete dress could only reveal her skeleton and her head reduced to a jaw and the peculiar black swallow-tail hair that should have scattered as a bouquet of spider lilies substituted the rest of her skull. Her own army was dragging her by her hand in stocks towards the scaffold in the distance. She tried to hang on anything she could reach with the purple ribbons that adorned her waist, tearing up the pavement and ruining the buildings along her way. The children in funeral dresses lined up wherever she walked and mourned the witch with false tears. Ruins and shed teeth remained in the procession’s wake.

Madoka swayed dizzily as the sight turned her world upside down. Homura caught her before she could have hit the ground, fighting with all her might not to fall herself under the weight of Madoka’s dread and pain. Their new kind of connection wasn’t something she could have forgotten even for a second.

“Homura-chan, promise me that you never, ever turn into... that!”, Madoka begged her.

Kyouko watched them shaking her head. She slipped her shoulder under her two friends’ to support them at once.

“There’s a girl outside who called Homura a skinny crybaby. What do you think she’d say if she saw you?”, she scolded Madoka. “Your girlfriend will never be a witch if she survived what happened here, alright? Even a rhinoceros would break down from the dose of 3D she received!”

Then she turned to Homura. She rummaged her pocket for an ampule and a syringe then gave them to her.

“Inject it to yourself because you’re useless like this. Then we go and have a talk with this other self of yours. I know the plan, I’ve heard everything, Meuko was listening in.”

“What’s this?”, Homura asked, eyeing the white liquid suspiciously.

“Frankly, I have no idea. I’ve mixed it out of about two dozen components by Meuko’s recipe. She found it among Jones’ files. She says it can alleviate the effect of 3D. It tastes awful.”

The raven haired girl skillfully slid the needle in her arm to inject the liquid from the syringe. It was Meuko’s recipe. Shooting herself with the enemy’s chemicals felt cozy and soothing, like playing Russian roulette.

Sayaka’s hair stood on end as she watched her. She took a long, careful look at Madoka and Kyouko. She found needle marks on both girls’ arms and she hadn’t got the slightest doubt about Homura.

“What kind of world do you live in? Why are you doing this to yourselves? Or someone else is doing this to you?”

Kyouko gave her a short, sad glance as an answer then she turned to the blonde.

“Mami, you’re the veteran here, what should we do now?”

“Kaname-san and I stay up here to provide cover but everyone else should go down in the valley to get closer to... her. Bebe and Miki-san said they had already had to deal with witches and you two can surely handle yourself.”, Mami pointed at the two Kyoukos.

The redhead looked at her puzzled.

“What? Did you just say you’ve never seen a witch?! How could you survive then?”

“Things are different here. We’ll tell you later, Sakura-san, and you’ll have to tell us a lot too. But now we have more important things to do. Bebe, help us carry our invaluable emissaries down there! I don’t think they could defend themselves on the way.”

She wrapped the _World D_ Homura and Madoka in a nice package with her ribbons while speaking. The others from her universe lined up and invoked their soul gems from their rings. Then Mami joined them taking a deep breath like she was trying to call a fantastic new finishing move. Kyouko chewed up and swallowed what she was holding in her mouth then she pricked her ears shaking her head. Being in a different world didn’t matter, Mami remained the same...

“Puella Magi: Ottetto Sorprendente!”, the blonde girl called. It wasn’t a finishing move, but Kyouko’s guess was close enough.

“ _Casu Marzu!_ ”, the little Nagisa shouted and blew her even smaller trumpet throwing back her head. The tiny black instrument was black with red polka dots, adorned by a pair of wings – and now it gave way to something similar looking yet very different. An enormous worm burst out of the trumpet with the same colors and wings, charging up to the sky like a train on its tip, taking a turn in the clouds and launching itself at the bound girls in a nose dive. They struggled with their eyes wide open in terror, but the magical ribbons were holding tightly. A gunshot boomed but it missed, slightly cracking the rainbow sky: Kyouko’s gun was jerked away from the world’s biggest cheese worm by Mami’s ribbons on her wrist. The blonde gestured the redhead to relax. The huge larva reached its petrified victims. The terrifying jaws clapped together and grabbed the handle of the package very gently.

They felt a quick pull and they were already tearing through the air at breakneck speed with the help of Nagisa’s witch half. It felt like being the other girls’ air recon team so they carefully observed everything from above. Homulilly’s maze was huge and elaborate even in ruins. Everything Homura knew about Mitakihara six years ago was here and she made up everything else to complete the fake city. The complexity of this bubble universe was frightening. Only a very few, insanely strong witches could maintain this scale of order inside their barriers. The girls hoped that they wouldn’t have to fight Homulilly in the end.

While they watched the caricature of the city from above the others broke through the army of the witch. They tore a wide path through the torrent of tin soldiers as they headed towards a large square in the valley. They followed the little team and the enormous caterpillar protected everyone from the cloud of attacking birds wriggling and swinging its tail.

As the girls down there and the bullets and arrows from above cleared the square the worm witch put the pair down and disappeared in Nagisa’s trumpet from where it had come. Sayaka freed Madoka and Homura cutting the cocoon in half with a single slash. The others formed a circle around the three and Nagisa blew a huge rainbow bubble from her trumpet that shattered the hurtling birds to tiny, shiny shards.

Homura could finally have a look at the city from the ground too. They were standing in an empty, wrecked, pointless bus stop, but the displays still showed lines of text written in runes: _Nutcracker Witch. Its nature is self-sufficient. You are always a laughingstock._

“What would have happened If I’d read this sign six years ago? Was this sign here at all?”, the dark-haired girl wondered. Despite her former state she could take the things around her quite well. Kyouko’s cocktail (what was actually Meuko’s) seemed working. Madoka felt the change too, yet she squeezed her hand worriedly.

Sayaka answered the rhetorical question.

“There are things that you shouldn’t rack your brain over. Sometimes it does more harm than good.”

Homura looked at her in complete surprise. The Sayaka she knew would have rather run headfirst into a wall than ignoring such a doubt.

“Strange, this isn’t the way the Miki Sayaka I remember used to talk. You seem like a very different person to me.”

“Don’t you start it too!”, the younger Kyouko shouted at her, concealing her dread with anger. “This is not your labyrinth, understand?!”

“Don’t worry, Kyouko. This Homura is not like us.”, Sayaka tapped the redhead on her shoulder. “She’s far from joining our little friend at her own execution!”

Homura gave a sigh.

“I’m fine, really. We can start if you’re ready.”

Sayaka nodded. She turned the tip of her sword against her chest and stabbed herself. The blade stuck out of her back but if it wasn’t painful enough she even twitched it in the wound. Her blood profusely streamed down along the edge of the weapon and spilled to the ground behind her back.

They heard shouting full of anger and felt something approaching through the tin army. The menacing energy would have been enough for many witches, it was strong enough to break through the drugs that dampened the pink-black pair’s magical senses. Homura’s tin parodies were sent flying along a dozen paths as Homulilly’s elite soldiers broke through the army.

There was only Nagisa, the two Kyoukos and the support Mami and the younger Madoka provided from the hilltop to hold back the attack. Sayaka didn’t need more than a few unperturbed seconds but even that much was hard to get. The familiar children fought ferociously with their long needles and the girls had to retreat step by step. Nagisa’s bubble collapsed first, then the fence that the younger Kyouko raised around Sayaka, Madoka and Homura.

Fortunately they could buy enough time to let Sayaka’s witch form emerge from the pool of blood in the middle. Oktavia swam in the air towards Homulilly and the children followed. Sayaka was conducting her other self with a baton right to the master of the labyrinth. Oktavia tore the ropes by which the army was dragging Homulilly and grabbed her skeletal hands. The nutcracker witch flailed crushing everything around with her bloody ribbons but it couldn’t stop Oktavia from tugging her through the army of familiars.

They reached the square in a minute. The ribbons froze in the air as the witch sensed the impossible. The children stopped throwing things at Oktavia and hid their stick sized needles behind their backs. Even Oktavia released the bony hands. Every noise inside the barrier died down, every creature stood clear of the way of the alien Homura. And she walked to her witch self, hand in hand with Madoka. Two worlds met in this moment.

Homura felt that her soul had found one more thing to hold on to: it enveloped and connected to Homulilly too. She fell on her knees as the gaping void of hopelessness hit her. She felt with the witch, hated herself deeper than ever. She wanted to die again. And she felt the whole city inside of her. There were a few tiny specks of dust standing in the middle of the city. One of the specks was her, holding the whole town inside, with herself standing on the street, and in her head there was... a loop of pure madness. But she wasn’t alone in this city. Madoka was there too, partly fused with her and Homura kept holding on her with her hand and soul to stop the dive.

Homulilly was different yet too similar. If she had let the feelings of the witch take over she’d have end up the same, dragging Madoka down with her. Madoka felt everything she felt and she couldn’t allow herself to infect her with this darkness. She fought thoughts with thoughts and feelings with feelings. Madoka was there to her and they recalled the last few years together. They had defeated Walpurgis and Madoka remained a normal girl. They were broken and healed together. There was room for her in the Kaname house, she received a home and a family, things she hadn’t even dreamed about. They were alive, living a meaningful life. Come out, other Homura, your friends are waiting for you, there’s a world here and hope and life and Madoka! No one said that they could reach a witch like this but this was no ordinary situation.

Homulilly seemed to hesitate. The two girls didn’t know how much of the being called Akemi Homura remained inside her. Perhaps she would command her familiars to kill the intruders the next second.

She spoke instead, through the phonograph’s speaker attached to her belt. Her broken, intermittent voice echoed along the street.

“Madoka... came here for me. But I have to stay. Take her... with you! This world is... not safe anymore. She could get me out of here... but they are watching... hunt her down... use her... they ruin everything!”

“Verräter! Tunichtgut!”, the children burst in outrage. The air filled with the tomatoes they threw at their mistress.

“Halt die Schnauze!”, Sayaka snapped. Oktavia towered above the unruly familiars.

Both sides silenced in astonishment. Nothing happened the way it should have.

A witch was begging for help.

A magical girl reprimanded a group of familiars – and they listened. The girls from _World D_ weren’t sure that this Sayaka would still have qualified as a magical girl, though.

Madoka squeezed Homura’s hand.

“She’s really you! She still only thinks of me! But what should we do now?”

She blushed at the next thought. Homura-chan was exceptional, even as a witch, but she shouldn’t have been proud of her for it. And what if Homura felt this thought too? She shyly looked at her, just to meet a gentle, understanding look instead of the expected disapproval.

“Walter would surely take her with him.”, the raven haired girl said, thinking aloud. “But wouldn’t we make a big mistake if we did? We wouldn’t be the first ones.”

Sayaka placed her hand on Homura’s shoulder.

“I see that you’ve really learned something. It would be grave mistake. I don’t know what happened in your world that the both of you are here, I don’t even understand what you exactly are. But you must know that Madoka represents hope in our world. Without her, every magical girl would end up as a witch.”

“You mean your Madoka knows something we know? Does she use soul magnets too?”, the older Kyouko asked. “Sorry, Homu, you’ll have to wait a little... we might have some other way to help you!”, she said patting a knuckle bone she could reach stretching herself.

Sayaka gave her a puzzled look.

“No, Madoka is a force of nature. A goddess, if you like. She takes every magical girl with her when their soul gems burn out.”

It was quite a revelation. The three girls from _World D_ kept quiet. While they were digesting this new twist Sayaka waved to Mami and their Madoka to come. The two girls on the hilltop had already figured out that something strange happened and they were already preparing to come down and join the conversation they couldn’t hear from up there.

“And the Incubators don’t like it because they want their witches back, do they?”, Homura asked. “But how can they oppose a deity? They surely can, she’s the living proof that Madoka couldn’t take everyone away!”, she pointed at her alternate.

“They created a force field that blocked Madoka from reaching Homura’s soul gem. This is why the three of us had to enter her labyrinth to free her. But, as you see, she doesn’t want to come with us.”, Sayaka answered. “She thinks that the Incubators would catch Madoka. Could you explain yourself that it’s impossible? She’s a god!”

“To be honest, even I’m not convinced.”, Homura shook her head. She felt in her soul how deeply Homulilly agreed her.

“...but if we take away their Madoka, what will happen to the hope in their world?”, the pinkette asked.

Sayaka took a deep breath but before she could have answered the older Kyouko loudly slapped herself on the forehead.

“Girls, we are such a bunch of idiots! Why don’t we show them our method?”, she asked and turned to Sayaka. “You don’t understand what we are? Just look here!”

She showed around her hands. Homura did the same. There were no magical rings and no marks on their nails. The dark-haired girl took over.

“In a nutshell: we smashed our soul gems and tied our souls to our bodies again. There’s no need of magic, no need of Incubators nor grief seeds. It’s pure science, plain twenty-first century technology. We still have to fight because it doesn’t make the witches disappear, we can still use a part of our magic, but we don’t have to remote control our own bodies anymore.”

“Which means that we really don’t use magic if we don’t use magic!”, Kyouko explained. “And not a single one of us could ever fall in despair enough to turn into a witch. Theoretically it’s not impossible, but it’s very-very hard to achieve. Someone has just made an attempt at the sanity of our poor Homura but as you can see she’s still in one piece. The thing is, becoming a witch isn’t our inescapable fate anymore. And if you do the same it’ll be pointless for those aliens to hijack Madoka because you can stand in their way yourselves. The more girls know the method the better! It isn’t that simple but not that complicated either. You can easily find dozens of girls who are clever enough to understand it. You may even convince the inventor to side with you. If he’s at large, I mean. Our version of him has been through both jail and asylum. But until you reach him, I’m here for you!”

Homura looked at her dubiously, but Kyouko’s usual grin relieved her.

“You know that I was Walter’s assistant! I’ve seen it enough times. I can put the operation through and I know how the magnets are made. There’s someone waiting outside whom I’ve already mentioned... I’ve just brought her back. The equipment was hardly adequate here in the Power Station, but you can always use a few Incubators. I’ve always enjoyed the irony...”

She turned to the girls from the other side.

“Let’s go catch a few of Kyubey! Then I’ll need a volunteer. Let’s be off, there’s a biochemical lab on the right of the next corridor. If these little pallbearers haven’t smashed it into pieces, I mean.”

“I’d be glad to see the operation again, but I must warn you that you don’t have the time for it!”, Meuko said from a speaker under the bus stop’s screen. I suggest you to do something to the labyrinth because it’s connecting the two worlds in an inconsistent way. According to my measurements both worlds are stable at the moment but at this rate the decay can start again in our universe and it can infect its new cluster too. Especially that Dr. Jones is tampering with something through the console, under an account even I can’t monitor. And one more thing: I’m sorry for the rec...”

Then they couldn’t hear anything but quiet white noise from every direction.

“How could that bastard survive this too?”, Kyouko growled, referring to Jones. “Weeds don’t spoil... I hope he didn’t mess up everything!”

Mami and the younger Madoka arrived at that very moment. The pinkette blushed as she noticed how curiously the others were looking at her.

“W-what happened? Should we have fired again? If so, I’m sorry, I’m still new at this magical girl thing...”

“We have her memories.”, Nagisa explained. “We had to take them over to deceive the Incubators.”

“Is that pock-marked bloke Jones?”, the younger Kyouko asked, pointing at the man who was standing at a console disguised as an ATM, banging on the keys. “Was he the one who did those things to you two?”

The non-magical Madoka and Homura nodded at once.

“He’s dangerous, we must stop him!”

The others didn’t hesitate a moment. Spear, arrow and bullet struck the wall behind Jones. Magical weapons didn’t usually miss a still target, and they didn’t miss this time either - the projectiles simply slipped through him.

“It’s just a little compensation for dying from the repeated crossing over between worlds.”, Jones looked up from the console with a mocking smile crossing his lips. ”The instability that kills me protects me too. Fair’s fair, isn’t it? Let’s see if your magic can protect you from the model W17!”

“Get down!”, the older Kyouko shouted. The ex-magical girls were down on their faces in an instant. The others assumed that they did so because they weren’t hidden in small gems anymore. But in the next moment about one third of the young Madoka was missing, including her soul gem. It took an infinite moment for the rosy bow to hit the ground. A horribly mutilated body in bloody school uniform followed. A key clicked on the console, the whole world jerked like the picture on the screen of a dying television.

They have never heard anything like the sound that Homulilly’s speaker emitted. The world itself felt screaming in pain, despair and rage. The child familiars rushed at Jones and covered him like a swarm of ants. They worked with ruthless professionalism and they lined up in a few seconds boasting with the more interesting pieces pinned on their needle-lances. They left nothing recognizable of him.

And Madoka was floating in front of their line, dressed in white, her impossibly long pink hair swimming in the air. One by one she stroked the familiars’ head with a sad smile then she stepped to the witch.

“I remember now! How could I forget that I had come for you...?”. Her eyes were glowing in gentle golden light as she took Homulilly’s hand. The touch seemed to get off guard the witch who shattered into a cloud of red petals. The wind dispersed the cloud leaving Homura where it had been. She was kneeling in her magical girl dress looking at her savior with a grateful but very confused expression.

Madoka held out her bow.

“Come, Homura-chan, let’s break out together!”

“Madoka, please wait just a moment...!”

The returned Homura quickly ran to the others and bowed as a thanks for everything.

“I’ll take you at your word, Sakura Kyouko!”, she said. “I can’t let Kyubey lay hands on Madoka! It was my fault that the Incubators learned about witches, I hope I can still get it right! If you weren’t here, I’d...”

The redhead gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder then said goodbye to her friends from her own world.

“There’s a local girl outside whom I’ve already mentioned. She’s called Nyameka and she’s waiting for you. If things went fine she has very important data with her. Those disks don’t have any backup because she blew up the server room. They would be of no use on the other side so please take them to Walbey. Peter can probably figure out a way to use them. I want to hear what we have when I get back!”

Once more she turned back for a moment giving them a grin holding a cereal stick between her teeth. Then she waved to them and followed the other Homura.

“I didn’t know anything about this universe. It used to be so far, but all of a sudden our worlds touch...”, the Goddess mused. “But everything beyond that force field belongs to our world only. That’s where we have to go. Come here, Homura-chan!”

They flexed the enormous bow together and sent an arrow of intertwined pink and purple flames through the ceiling. It broke through the force field, then something else.

The staying pair could hardly see the huge floating red eyes that were there for a mere moment before the hail of arrows came down on them from the sky. As the eyes hit the ground they exploded in a pink flash of light that erased the whole labyrinth in an instant. It took away their alternatives and it took Kyouko who chose the other side.

Only the two remained in the middle of the wrecked laboratory, surrounded by blank screens. Homura collapsed as her exhaustion finally hit her. Madoka caught her and stayed there sitting, resting the other girl’s head on her lap.


	8. World’s End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins...
> 
> 'Our' Mami-san is here! But even the blonde cheese can't be really happy in this world... I know, I'm an evil writer, a Drosselmeyer...)
> 
> Labels: Absolutely No Rebellion, But There's Fringe 5th Season, Kazamino URL, Sakura Church, Chitose Family, They're Watching the Future, Psychokinesis, Mecca, Waste Heat of Geothermal Heating, Double Bridge, Homura is fine, Prepare for Unforeseen Consequences, Slow Teleport Effect, Accidentally Mixing Up Places, Growing Doses of Cortexiphan, Braids, Natalia Poklonskaya Wa Veteran Dakedo (sorry, Mami-san :D)
> 
> Beta read: shiNIN

****

#  **World’s End**

_v0.9101_

“We should leave, Madoka... Don’t worry, I’m fine!”

To prove it Homura got up without help and she was standing before Madoka with shaky legs. The other girl looked into her eyes, gently stroked her face and put an arm around her to help her stumbling through the debris-filled room. The collision with Homulilly’s world left the place in ruins. The furniture, computers, instruments and files were lying around broken, wrecked, torn apart. But the two girls weren’t much better off. They didn’t wish anything but to get out to the open, then to get home together. They were glad that they had survived the last few days. Walbey could wait, they didn’t even know yet what would they tell him. Some strange feeling warned them to keep silent about the details in this world. At least they ruined the Power Station and found Kyouko, even though they couldn’t take her back home.

The air had warmed up since the ventilation and air conditioning went off. Nothing worked in the tunnels except for the emergency lighting. They could probably be deep underground and they didn’t even know the way out. The two girls were facing long, unpleasant hours of finding their way up inside the unknown facility. They kept their ears open and looked behind every door along the corridors they passed hoping that they would find the girl Kyouko said to be waiting for them.

They heard footsteps before a bend. They crouched quickly but wearily to keep an eye on the newcomer. To their relief it proved to be an unknown dark skinned girl of about high school age. She looked just as weary as they were but her eyes were keenly searching for something. Finally she seemed to have found it and firmly made her way towards the two other girls holding out a briefcase.

“Kyouko told me to give it to you if she wouldn’t return. So she’s...”, she gave a startled look as she noticed the redhead’s absence.

“Don’t worry, she’s fine. She’s just in another world.”, Madoka answered. “If you were with her you must know who we are.”

“I knew it much earlier!”, Nyameka replied briskly but she didn’t continue. A few days ago she would have been overjoyed to see the two legends, but now she was much more considerate. The legends didn’t look prepared to handle her excitement.

“And you are like us. You must be the girl Kyouko-chan kept mentioning. You are Nyameka-san, aren’t you?”, Madoka asked. She’d got less of Jones’ magic-suppressing drugs so her senses had already started to return.

“Nyameka Gretel Mathibe. I’m glad to meet you!”, the African girl offered her hand. Madoka accepted but Homura was looking at her suspiciously. Something was wrong. How could the daughter of the Power Station’s creator in here as a former magical girl?

“I swear that I have nothing to do with this whole...”, Nyameka said apologetically. She could handle the last few days quite well, but now she felt a lump in her throat. “I mean... I have my part in it, but I really didn’t want this... I’m sorry and I’m so happy that you helped Kyouko to break it! I don’t know how you did it, but it was brilliant!”

“We almost bit the dust. Brilliantly.”, Homura sighed. She was still haunted by her alternative who wanted to bite the dust so much that she scattered thousands of her teeth on the ground.

Now she accepted Nyameka’s hand.

“What exactly is this thing you brought?”, she asked then.

The African girl opened a door, stepped to a desk and opened the briefcase. There were hard drives inside neatly lined up and a lot of grief seeds and a dozen of ampules, everything carefully wrapped in foam and fastened to the sides of the briefcase.

“Research material, Witch Elixir samples, notes, and something sent by Meuko. Kyouko said that even I shouldn’t know what’s that. You say that she didn’t even tell it to you...?”

Homura’s brows furrowed.

“You say she made you take out a pile of 3D samples without batting an eyelid yet she couldn’t tell you what that other thing is? If it was someone else I’d suggest to burn the whole pack before leaving... but I trust Kyouko. Though I’m sure that we don’t want anyone to find it on us.”

“Nyameka-san, how deep are we?”, Madoka asked. “We have to get out of here as soon as possible. I fear that something’s terribly wrong outside. By all means we have to tell Walbey what happened!”

“What do you feel, Madoka?”, Homura asked anxiously before the third girl could have answered.

“I don’t know! But it feels like something’s happened to the whole world!”

The raven haired girl gave her a startled look. She had just put two and two together and she was scared of the night. If the dose of 3D and the other world with her own witch self wouldn’t be enough, Jones’ words he said before he put her in the Device would surely give her the worst nightmares ever...

“It can separate or draw worlds closer changing everything in one or both of them... My God, what have we done?!”

“This way!” - Nyameka pointed to a door. “Kyouko said that we had come up at least a kilometer by the elevator but we must be still quite deep. Luckily there are stairs too from here on. I don’t know how we’d get out of here otherwise, because nothing works now.”

Homura was wondering what to do after they got out. Along their way through the man-made caves they couldn’t see anything but ruins and debris. They were dead on their feet so time to time they stopped to rest a little. One by one they climbed dozens of floors on their way out. Homura’s body was the weariest, but at least her soul felt better by now. Madoka was glad to see her recovering from the dangerous state Jones pushed her into and she happily supported her unsteady steps to get up the stairs as quickly as they could.

The surroundings were changing gradually. Painted walls replaced the bare rock and concrete but there was no one around. Nyameka seemed desperately looking for something. It took a while for her to let out what bothered her.

“I don’t remember these parts at all, even though I _had to_ come through these levels on my way down. Like we got somewhere else!”

The other two exchanged a look. They thought the same: if everything changed this place could have changed too. Perhaps they weren’t even in the Power Station, or there was something else at the same place of this new world...

A little later they ran into an information board with a map. Nyameka tried to decipher the inscription but she couldn’t see anything but meaningless scribbles.

“It must be here for the Japanese scientists...”

Homura and Madoka stood silently reading the same board, but they understood the text perfectly: it was a map of the Kazamino Underground Research Laboratories. Nyameka didn’t understand why the two stood rooted to the spot.

“It isn’t the Power Station that changed, it was us who got somewhere else! If this board is where it’s supposed to be then we’re almost home.”, Madoka explained. “At least we don’t have to worry how we can bring the briefcase across the borders. On the other hand, you’re pretty far from home. But here we can surely find some help for you... if we can find anyone at all...”

They reached familiar parts soon but the place was still deserted. They could see bullet holes here and there, scattered random objects, debris, dust and browned smears of blood. But no one was around, not even a single corpse.

They browsed through a few offices and changing rooms but the place seemed plundered of everything important that used to be there. There was no research equipment, no weapons that the security could have left behind, even the computers were missing. At least they could find few fitting gray camouflage uniforms so they looked like UN/VP girls on an important mission for the sake of the victims of the Incubators and the whole humankind – exactly the girls who they were. Nyameka got a uniform in advance too so they really looked like a little squad.

They found the spacious entrance hall in ruins. Half of the huge steel gate had come down. In the middle of the hall there sprawled a nasty metal toad: a burnt Type 90 tank. As the girls watched the devastation their ominous foreboding grew stronger and stronger.

“I’d have never thought that it would be the first thing I see in Japan...”, Nyameka shook her head. “We’ve had a few tanks around during the coup... but why is it here?!”

Homura slipped into the wreck. The sounds from inside suggested that she smashed something. A minute later she climbed out with a pair of smoke grenades in her hands.

“This is everything that’s left from their equipment. I’m afraid they can be useful out there.”

Then she skittered to the gate and peered out. She waved to the other two to come. Nothing moved outside, only the trees swayed in the breeze along the serpentine road winding up here from the city in the valley. The birds were chirping like nothing had happened but the road and the mountain’s slopes were torn by bomb craters.

The girls drew themselves in the woods and took the short route down from the mountain. Every time they had to cross the road they looked around very carefully but they could never see anyone. Only a few wrecked cars proved that humans had ever come here. They looked unusable at first glance and the woods seemed safer anyway so the girls didn’t even think about taking one.

They reached the edge of the city. Most of the buildings were intact but the inhabitants didn’t show themselves. The doors were all locked, the windows curtained, the shops empty. Whatever had happened it must have happened recently as a city can’t stand still like this for long.

Madoka quickly grew tired of the deserted streets and the suspense and tugged Homura to a doorway. Nyameka stood fidgeting behind them feeling awkward. She was quite certain that no one in that house would understand her words.

Then someone opened the door and it turned out that even the two Japanese girls weren’t much better off. The tiny old man hardly peeked out of the house he tried to slam the door in their faces. Homura firmly stopped him. The way she did terrified the old man. He desperately tried again and again but his shrunken muscles couldn’t stand a chance against Homura’s will. Finally he gave up and looked begging in the purple eyes.

“Please, in the name of the eight million, go away! If they see you here we’ll all be shot dead!”

Homura was struck dumb. At least Madoka could put a few simple sentences together.

“What happened here? Have we done something we don’t know about?”

The old man didn’t answer just pressed them more.

“Just go away! My grandson will report you if he gets home!”

This time Homura let him lock them out. She would have liked to instantly leave Kazamino but she also wanted to know what had happened. The atmosphere of the city felt depressing, the fear in the air was almost palpable.

Nyameka didn’t understand the old man’s words but she got the point: yesterday’s heroes were unwanted in their own country. She was shaking with anger but couldn’t do anything, she couldn’t even tell the old geezer how thankful he should be. She wanted to kick the door but Homura held her back.

“Don’t! I have no idea what happened but we can’t give them more reasons to pick on us. From now on we’ll be even more cautious.”

They approached the deep concrete and glass canyon of the busy downtown through the trees and bushes of the parks. Homura was almost tugging Madoka by her hand and the pinkette felt that the other girl was led by instincts and experience from a past she couldn’t remember so she just followed.

Then she felt someone holding on her other hand too. She glanced behind her in surprise. She should have felt any approaching person, but the small child was just there unnoticed and now she was smiling behind Madoka as she held on her hand letting the pinkette drag her.

As Madoka could judge the horribly thin little girl could be ten or eleven years old and she wore green twin tails adorned with oversized golden beads and a light blue dress. As the two older girls stopped she ran straight into them. Only Madoka’s grip stopped her from falling, making her smile a little confused.

Madoka studied the girl who could attach to her undetected then she glanced at Homura. To her surprise the dark haired girl looked shocked. Homura exactly knew the girl they had run into. She also knew that despite her looks the child was about as old as they had been when they first met. She might have been better off with a contract with the Incubators... Homura desperately tried to shake off this thought.

“Madoka, this is my fault. I shouldn’t have forgotten about her but this time she didn’t make a contract so we’ve never found her...”

She suddenly stopped and clapped her hand over her mouth. Now she felt how she hurt Madoka when she blamed herself. They had already learned that they couldn’t help everyone who was, had been, would be around. They couldn’t do anything in this world. She tried to apologize without words then she realized how pointless it could look to Madoka. But the other girl understood her and gently stroked her face.

The child tilted her head as she looked at the two with genuine curiosity.

“Do you know Yuma? But Yuma isn’t famous like you two!”

The black haired girl nodded.

„I saw you when you were this little.”, she raised her hand to her waist. She tried to use simple sentences and avoid mentioning things like the time loop. She didn’t want to confuse Yuma who seemed to be stuck in her childhood, or worse. But the child didn’t listen, the two girls’ intertwined fingers and the way they behaved fully occupied her attention.

“Why are you hiding in the bushes holding hands? Are you in love? Mama said that two girls shouldn’t be! But Mama isn’t to be trusted!”

“ _Here we go! Her mother is the one who made her what she is! We should have saved Yuma from her!_ ”, Homura messaged to Madoka.

“ _Is she that woman who’s coming here?_ ”, Madoka asked in reply.

“Yes, it’s her! Yuma doesn’t want to go with her!”, the child answered at once, flailing desperately as she hid behind the older girls.

“ _Don’t say it aloud if you don’t want her to hear you._ ”, Homura messaged to Yuma.

But Madoka switched to spoken English instead to involve Nyameka, because the African girl who couldn’t speak Japanese nor catch telepathic messages could hardly understand anything.

“But what could we do for her, Homura-chan? She isn’t a magical girl... even though she understands our messages. It probably wouldn’t do any good to her if she had to fight on our side...”

Chitose Masako arrived at this very moment. Even Homura didn’t know her in person but she was quite positive that Yuma’s mother hadn’t been wearing strange letters tattooed on her face before.

The woman was furious to see her runaway daughter in such company. That problem child had to find these two of all... and they even had a gaijin with them, a black gaijin at that who was so alien to her that she could have easily come from another planet. And even worse, they weren’t even speaking Japanese, just to exclude her. She was sure that they deserved her hate regardless of the gossips and current official information about them. They had got everything she could only covet and they wasted everything. They were famous but didn’t make any use of their fame. They were rich but they just screwed around on the battlefield instead of enjoying the wealth. They were young and pretty yet they didn’t go and catch two good husbands. They had a sinful affair with one another instead, and the Kaname parents just kept smiling and patting their shoulders. Masako hated that mock of a family, that bunch of hypocrites. They were living in sin and now they tried to interfere with her own life. Fortunately this was a new, better world in which they couldn’t do anything they pleased.

“Come here at once you good-for-nothing, away from those dykes! They’re wanted criminals!”, she yelled at her daughter gesturing with a smoking cigarette butt.

Yuma had no intention to obey, she huddled herself up behind Madoka and Homura.

Masako approached menacingly. Nyameka was sure she had seen enough and stepped in her way. The woman just tossed her aside and raised her hand to hit the next person she finds. But she tripped in some invisible obstacle and almost fell on her face as she rushed past the girls. She turned back with great determination and tried and failed again, just like the scared old man a little earlier. She fiercely peered into the lavender eyes that held her back. Of course, _they_ had warned everyone about these girls’ supernatural abilities. The newscasters used to call them deserted magical girls. Then they became _specially trained terrorists_ , but it didn’t make any difference to Masako.

“I should have thought you’d try something you goddamn lesbian witches! But the Civil Protection will happily deal with you! I was stupid not to start here!”

She flicked away the cigarette butt and called a very short number.

“Hello, Reward Wire? It’s Chitose Masako here, four-seven-two-three. Two wanted persons have been sighted in the Sycamore Park. Yes, top priority.”

Pink eyes flashed and she screamed and dropped the phone which flew in the bushes leaving a trail of smoke. Masako staggered to the nearest bench holding a hand to her face and flopped down trembling in shock and anger.

“Teach this to Yuma too!”, the child cheered but Madoka and Homura were too scared to share her enthusiasm. The woman wasn’t too hard to deal with but the interrupted call could possibly stir up serious threat. Madoka regretted that it took so long to fry the phone.

But the reaction was incredibly quick and close. A few seconds and they heard the sirens approaching from the other side of the park. Those mysterious someones at the other side of the line seemed always alert.

Homura glanced around but she couldn’t see any vehicle they could have used so she closed her eyes to size up her inner reserves.

“I’m sorry Madoka, I don’t know anything better. I think I can do it with the both of us now... take Yuma on your neck and take my hand! Nyameka, I’ll carry you!”

The African girl looked her up and down in surprise.

“I don’t understand anything, but shouldn’t we do the opposite? You must be much lighter than me...”

„She’s right, Homura-chan! A few hours ago you couldn’t even walk without help...”, Madoka answered already knowing what Homura wanted to do. “We should really do the other way around. I’ll carry her and you take Yuma! And promise me that you won’t strain yourself too much! I really don’t want you to harm yourself any more. And you two, hang on to us very tight!”

The pinkette was relieved to see Homura to nod with a bleak smile. Nyameka was even more confused now, but as she seated herself on Madoka’s shoulders she understood everything. She experienced the feeling speed bikers seek at ten thousand rpm and full throttle. Her grip tightened on Madoka while Yuma was smiling widely and waving back from Homura’s neck. The smoke grenades covered Masako in dark gray mist and they could only hear her shouting something, then even these voice splinters drowned in cough and disappeared in the distance and the hissing of the wind.

This wasn’t how Nyameka imagined time magic, but at least she saw why she shouldn’t have tried to fight with Homura. Nyameka knew that the black haired girl was the source of the magic, but thanks to some mystic link both veterans slipped in a different time while she remained an outside observer. She couldn’t see where they zigzagged, even the two girls’ moves seemed unnatural to her eyes. She could hardly sense that she was saved by such a sudden turn from bumping into a patrolling drone. If it wasn’t for Madoka’s surprisingly strong grip she could have long been left behind at a corner. Now they were racing along the empty road: there were people on the sidewalks here and there, but the cars were mostly left on the sides of the roads.

The drones turned around and begin to follow them closing in gradually. They didn’t miss any corner the girls took. Madoka fried one of them but she almost fell on her face while doing so and five new drones turned up instantly as a reinforcement. A huge display glowed on the side of a high-rise building. Instead of the usual advertisements it showed the description and portraits of Madoka and Homura. The speed the hidden enemy reacted with scared the girls.

The next park belonged to the no man’s land between Kazamino and Mitakihara. It used to be a part of the city but during the last few years it degraded into a mere vacant lot next to the dying industrial zone. Homura had long known this place and if they had Kyouko with them she’d have instantly known where they were heading.

They darted into the thick bushes and Nyameka flied, fell then rolled in the grass on the other side. As she got on her feet she saw Homura on her knees, struggling for breath while holding her hands against her chest, surrounded by the worried Madoka and Yuma. Nyameka was worried for Homura too, but the intermittent high-pitched beeping from the bushes where they had just come through scared her even more. Then the beeping accelerated to shrill chirping and exploded in a burst of deafening white noise and a blinding flash.

“Kaname-san, Akemi-san, this way!”

A blonde girl waved from the bushes. She was the fourth member of the legendary quartet Nyameka had always wanted to meet. Tomoe Mami guided them toward the ruins among the dense woods. Madoka and Nyameka followed stumbling in the undergrowth, supporting Homura from both sides.

They shoved through an overgrown, barely visible gate into the former Sakura church. Nature had already taken over in there, nettle grew in the cracks of the floor and trees invaded through the long broken stained glass windows to get back the area humans had taken from them. There was nothing left in the nave but remainders of the pews vandalized by hobos and the stairs that led to the high altar. Mami ducked under the stairs and finally turned to the others in the twilight.

She had changed since they last saw her. The showcase lieutenant-colonel of the UN/VP was now wearing denim and boots instead of elegant costumes and tied her hair in a handy bun. Two little curly tresses by the sides of her face and a third at her forehead, this was everything she left of the iconic drills that made her so popular on the screens.

“We can take a rest here. I’ve knocked out the drones and there are no cameras around. The place will be as safe as possible for the next few hours.”

“Mami-san, how did you know that we were coming?”, Madoka asked while she gently seated Homura. “And what happened up here to begin with? It’s like everyone’s gone crazy!”

“I was guided by Mikuni-san. She knew when and where you’d pop up. And the people aren’t crazy... they’re just frightened. A lot of inexplicable things happened after you disappeared down there. All the Vortices closed at once and none has opened since then. It seems that we could even lift the quarantines anytime. But we couldn’t celebrate because the Observers arrived, at the exact same moment in every city of the world. They’re a bit different than those in Walbey’s pictures because our Observers look like bald Japanese. It is said that everywhere they popped up they look like the local natives and know the language. They didn’t need a week to defeat every army then they simply arrested and executed one percent of the population - as a warning. Then came everyone who would still lift up their voices. Anywhere you go there’s still a few who resist, but that’s all: a handful of people. The Mitakihara cell is led by Mikuni-san and we have Walbey too. He was so worried about you two that he stayed in Kazamino. Then the war broke out and we fled together before they attacked the underground lab. Thankfully Mikuni-san had already started to organize the Resistance before they arrived.

“Wait a minute!”, Nyameka snapped. “So they didn’t even attack you but this ‘Mikuni-san’ was already racking her brain to figure out what to do when you lost?! Doesn’t she give up a bit too early?”

“Nyameka-san, please don’t judge her! Mikuni-san sees many things before they’d happen.”, Madoka replied soothingly.

“And this is our luck!”, Mami said. “We’d be defenseless against the Observers without her, because somehow they calculate possible futures and manipulate the events to get favorable results! And it’s not even magic to them, but technology. It couldn’t even be magic because they’d need emotions for that but they don’t feel anything. They’re like Incubators, even though Mikuni-san says that they’re our own descendants from about 600 years in the future. She’s the only one who can do something against them so she keeps sitting at the University on a pile of grief seeds only God knows how she obtained and keeps an eye on the future to lessen our handicap. She has enough eyes in Mitakihara so when in the city we’ll follow her instructions too. But before we’d go into details I think you also have things to tell me. Have you found Sakura-san? And who are these girls? Have you brought them from Hochfeld?”

“Mami-san, she’s Nyameka-san!”, Madoka introduced the African girl. “We’ve met in the Power Station... or, at least, somewhere underground where we thought to be in the Power Station... she’s a former magical girl, she’s just been through her first operation. And Yuma-chan is... I don’t know. Homura-chan knows her from earlier. We’ve met here in Kazamino. It was her mother who reported us. She had a strange tattoo on her face.”

“Then you had run into an informer of theirs. They’re nicknamed loyalists. The Observers established this system right after their victory. It’s scary how fast they made themselves at home. But I still don’t understand why did you bring this child with you. Her mother’s going to look for her.”

“Because mom’s evil!”, Yuma exclaimed wholeheartedly.

Homura had an entirely different answer in mind.

“Because Yuma is one of my mistakes. One more thing I messed up. Like Amy.”, she said hoarsely, sitting slumped on a stone block, burying her face in her hands.

Mami didn’t entirely understand. She was eyeing the raven haired girl deep in her thoughts.

“What happened to you, Akemi-san? I feel that something went wrong.”

Homura just waved off the question as she thought about their last mission.

“You already know that we infiltrated the Power Station to free Kyouko. But they caught us instead and it was Kyouko who helped us. Jones was really there, just like we suspected... he experimented on us. He opened a gateway between two worlds and we’ve met our alternatives. Even you were there, and Sayaka too. And Kyouko left to that world to help them against their Incubators. But Jones did something worse, and changed everything with it. I suspect something but I don’t think it would be safe to talk about it. And I think if I suspect something then Walbey will immediately know. Just tell him that Jones has changed the place of our world!”

“You can tell him yourself, he wants to see you as soon as possible! But we have to get into Mitakihara first. It’s easy for me, but you two are wanted. Actually you had been wanted for a while. We didn’t understand why because they did never give a damn about us.”

Before she could have continued Madoka interrupted her with worried look.

“Mami-san... are my parents okay? The Observers must have looked for us at home... didn’t they hurt them?”

“I’m sorry, Kaname-san. We couldn’t contact them since this whole thing began. They never pick up the phone and don’t answer online. We didn’t try to get to them in person, Mikuni-san said that it would be dangerous. The Observers would associate us with you if they saw us there. We hope they don’t answer because they know that they’re being watched.”

Madoka’s face turned pale and even Homura felt dizzy. In the distant, hazy, medicine-flavored past her bad heart would have possibly failed her. Before meeting Madoka she had no one that would have cared for her, no one that would have made her worry. But it was all different now. There are moments when the world can wait. She knew that the world would involve itself in anything they do anyway, like it always happened.

“We must see them!”, she snapped. Madoka gave her a thankful look.

Mami nodded understandingly.

“Go look for them, but after that we want to see you at the University. Alive. We don’t even have to change our plan. Our problem remains: we want to get you into Mitakihara but they keep the incoming roads and bridges under control. They stop every vehicle and identify every pedestrian. They’d immediately spot you. The river is not an option, you’d make an easy target while swimming. Mikuni-san can help you to avoid the Observers on the streets but even she can’t help you to get past the checkpoints. On the other hand, Walbey sent you a lot of Cortexiphan. He suspects that with the right dose Kaname-san could take you to the other side, just like Olivia. The entry is guarded only on our side, at least we hope that they haven’t invaded the other universe. According to Walbey it’s safe to cross over now that the decay of our world stopped.

“I’ve never done it, Mami-san, but I must try!”, Madoka answered with a determined look.

“I’ve brought you some extra equipment, Kaname-san. You’ll need it to cross over. I report that you’re here then I give it to you.”

Then she took her phone from the pocket of her denim jacket.

“I’ve found them, exactly where and when expected.”, she said to someone on the other side. “Four. No, she isn’t with them, they’re with two new girls. No, you’ll see. They say she’s alive. Right, according to the plan. Yes, they go there first. What do your lines say? Okay, as we arranged.”

She pocketed her phone then turned to the girls again.

“Walbey would like to see you. He’s sad that Sakura-san isn’t here and he’s sorry for sending you there. Mikuni-san says that it’ll be the best to leave around four-twenty, give or take ten minutes. She’ll call me should anything change.”

She paused to have a look at the group. With the possible exception of Yuma they looked quite depressed, especially Homura. Madoka just whispered something in her ear while fiddling with her hair. Mami watched them with a bit of envy but she knew them enough to know that they probably had good reason to pay more attention to each other than to her speech. She had seen the dark haired girl dragging the four of them in her own time and she knew that it was exhausting enough for her even when she did it alone. And even though Homura didn’t go into details Mami was terrified of the thought of Jones experimenting on the two. So she waited a little more and observed the new girls in the meantime.

The African girl was a rather unusual sight for her, yet Mami felt that she was a ‘pretty normal’ girl with a ‘pretty normal’ post-magical trauma, just like herself. She surely had her own story and one day she would probably tell it. Mami felt that they’d probably understand each other. At least in English. The child was a harder nut to crack. She seemed keen and playful but very immature and Mami felt something hiding under the childish surface - but the blonde didn’t want to mull over this problem now.

“You’ve heard the call. This is the way we talk on the phone and we discuss every important matter in person because the calls might be monitored. Sometimes we use encrypted two-way radios through relay stations and often change the frequency.”

Nyameka had been silent so far but something worried her and she couldn’t help asking anymore.

“Excuse me... Tomoe-san... is there any news from Namibia? I don’t even know how we left the Power Station but I’m afraid everything’s crashed there... have you heard about any disaster in my country?”

Mami just shook her head. Any news from the outside world was censored and contorted by the Observers’ propaganda lately.

“Nyameka-san...! I’m so sorry, we forgot about your parents! We don’t know anything about them!”, Madoka realized.

“Don’t worry about them. My mother died several years ago and my father has just been shot.”, the Namibian girl answered with her head bowed. “Aunt Mahloli was the only one to help me from my family since then. It doesn’t matter where I go, no one will miss a corrupt minister’s daughter back in Windhoek. I’d have just liked to know what happened at home...”

Madoka gave her a sad look. She could never get used to it, even though it was so normal by magical girl standards. And before they exposed the aliens most of these girls either died in witch barriers or ended up as witches themselves. Madoka was quite sure that it would have been Nyameka’s fate too if she hadn’t met Kyouko.

“Don’t worry, I can manage.”, Nyameka gave her a bleak smile. “Just go, I’ll cheer for you. At least you should find your parents.”

“Oh... before we’d disappear on you... this was sent by Kyouko.”

Homura held out the briefcase she had got from the Namibian girl. She was too weak to get up and give it to Mami so the blonde stepped to her and took it.

“What’s in it?”, Mami asked raising her brows.

Homura took a deep breath but couldn’t say anything. She asked Madoka with her tired eyes to do the talking.

“A lot of dangerous things.”, Madoka began. “A bunch of grief seeds, disks with research material and something so bad that Kyouko didn’t even tell us what’s that. She said that Peter would probably figure out what to do with it, but I don’t know how we can contact him in this chaos.”

“Neither do I. No one knows where he is. The only thing I know is that Walbey asked him and Olivia to retrieve something from somewhere. But the grief seeds will come handy, Mikuni-san has to use her magic too much.”

“There’s something more.”, Madoka kept speaking while she sat down next to Homura letting the other girl hanging on to her. “It’s a drug Jones was working on. It’s called 3D. They used it to make witches out of magical girls. They dosed Homura-chan with it to find her parallel in the other universe. Mami-san, the other Homura-chan was a witch and we’ve been to her labyrinth!”

Mami turned red. She was close to use words not becoming to a classy lady. She counted to ten, twenty, fifty with clenched fists. She was looking for the part of her that methodically took notes about every witch she met and figured out how to make muskets out of ribbons.

Finally she found it. Then she had to find the supply she brought for the two to get them into Mitakihara. Two rather big doses of Cortexiphan, a pair of ear plugs, a dive mask with covered visor, two Beretta 92FS’ and a waterproof radio transmitter.

The pair kept silent too, only Madoka raised her brows at the ear plugs and dive mask.

“Walbey said that you’ll need an isolation tank to cross over.”, Mami explained. “And among all things here the winter fountain at the bridge is the closest to a tank. You inject half of the Cortexiphan, it’s even better if you do it now, you take these not to see nor hear anything, the lukewarm water will switch off your sense of heat, then... I hope you know what to do.”

It was all clear to Madoka. She had already tried how does it feel to float in the emptiness and she knew that her subconscious would do strange things without the consent of her conscious self. And if there aren’t too many obstacles, it would do these things to reality itself.

She hesitated for a moment then she opened the case of a clean syringe to clear the way for her inner powers. Although the drug was effective if taken orally it took effect faster and better this way. Madoka remembered how shocked and worried her parents had been when they saw the first needle marks on her arm. She still didn’t fully understand how she could convince them that her mission was important enough to do this to herself. Homura’s repeated medical examinations and soul magnet treatments at the Kazamino base could have possibly prepared them for the things to come. They also talked to Olivia who had first met the drug thirty years earlier and there still weren’t any lasting effects. But Madoka’s determination must have been the most important of all.

The doses she used on the battlefield were very small, but this time she was preparing to cross over the boundaries of the world so this dose was many times greater. She suspected that this time she wouldn’t get away with it.

But she was still fine. She smiled at Mami then gently helped Homura to sit up and eat. There was enough food in Mami’s backpack for the five of them. The resistance fighters usually ate packaged food from the University’s cafeteria but the relatives of Mami’s ex helped them too from a nearby village.

“He’s a good guy. It was no one’s fault that we didn’t fit together. You see, he still helps us...”, the blonde mused.

As she watched the two she couldn’t help reconsidering the idea that had always been crawling in the back of her mind. Maybe she should find a nice girl, anyone who could help her endure these times. She quickly shook her head. That surely wouldn’t work. And it wasn’t _that_ bad. She had friends now and it was much more than back in her school days. She kept watching them while she brushed aside her gloomy thoughts to smile more sincerely. She switched to a more lighthearted subject to escape her thoughts.

“You’ve surprised me with this hairstyle. Is this a new game to you?”, she asked the girlfriends. Madoka had just tied a bow to Homura’s freshly woven braid while the other girl was just staring forward like she had been hypnotized. Homura was so tired that she couldn’t even sense that part of the world that wasn’t Madoka. She felt the familiar fingers playing with her tresses and these touches soothed and lulled her.

Yuma grew envious of their game but the only hair she could play was her own. She had just finished with her new braids and she swayed them grinning, with those huge beads on their ends. Then she began to examine Nyameka’s much trickier cornrows.

Madoka watched her with a tired smile.

“Not really. I just braided my hair to put on that diving suit easier and I didn’t have the time to let it down.”, she answered. “But Homura-chan is so cute like this...”

“You’re cute too, Kaname-san, but I still think that you both look better if you let your hair loose.”

So Madoka let her hair down and turned around to show that her tresses were split in two in Homura’s style.

“Do you get it?”, she winked. But her hair wasn’t used to this treatment and a head shake made the parting disappear.

Then she sat down on the ground, laid Homura’s head into her lap and took her hand the other girl held out to her. Years had passed since they had to spend the night among ruins. Homura probably couldn’t even have fallen asleep without a physical contact with Madoka back then. She was probably afraid of Madoka disappearing overnight, of the realization that everything since Walpurgisnacht had been an illusion, of the empty city without exit that haunted her dreams.

Now they relived those times. Mecca had been last place where they fought together, the last place where they were surrounded by strange, hostile night in their sleep. When they fought witches their mission rarely took more than a few hours. When they went to look for magical girls in faraway cities they could always find shelter for the night. But in Mecca there was nothing. Nothing but the ever hissing wind among the vacated buildings and the loose familiars of the witches that had already fell out of this world. At the center of the closed city there sat the unfinished sarcophagus, a depressing half-baked attempt to save the holy city without desecrating it, utterly failed and waiting to be cleaned from the supernatural dangers that consumed its builders. That mission reminded of hunting in the Zone of Chernobyl or Fukushima. They had to check their radiation dose every evening as they were so close to an open wormhole leading to the unknown.

This evening Madoka and Mami talked about those times. Nyameka listened them shivering and they could even hold Yuma’s attention. Then it was Nyameka’s turn to tell them how she had sniffed around in the depths of the Power Station and how she met the former magical girls. Yuma was still listening.

They didn’t pay attention to the fading light and once they just saw that they couldn’t even see the others’ outlines. Yet they didn’t make a fire. Its light and heat could have possibly attracted some curious eyes. Mami and Nyameka kept on telling their stories for a while in the complete darkness but Madoka focused on the dark haired girl sleeping on her lap.

* * *

She couldn’t remember when she had fallen asleep but she was positive that the dawn was nigh. Homura quietly moaned in her sleep and Madoka gently stroked her forehead.

“Does Akemi-san still have nightmares?”, an uncertain shady blob asked in front of her. Of course, they spent the night in the ruins with Mami and two other girls. Madoka just waved, she didn’t feel strong enough to tell the nightmarish details of the last few days that haunted her too.

“It’s after four, you should leave! Mikuni-san gave the nod too. You probably won’t bump into Observers but if you do, run. You don’t have any chance against them with your weapons. They see time differently and those bullets are simply aren’t fast enough, they catch them in flight with bare hands. But the guns may come handy against the informers and the civil protection. I don’t tell you to shoot at passersby or Yuma-chan’s mother but no one knows what future holds...

“Feel free to shoot at her, she deserves it!”, they heard the child girl’s voice from the darkness.

Mami stiffened in an instant like freezing rain. How many nights she had lain awake regretting her wish... She should have thought it through so she could have saved her family. She would have given so much to get them back... How could anyone wish for her own mother’s death?

“Dear God... Do you understand what you just said?”

“I understand it just as clearly as she understood that she tried to kill Madoka and Homura when she reported them. And she knew exactly what she was doing when she broke my arm. My mother is a bad person and the whole world would be better off without her.”

Mami was dumbfounded. There wasn’t a trace of the ignorant playful child in Yuma’s ice cold voice. Yuma even forgot to talk about herself in third person. The blonde girl pitied and feared her at once. She was afraid of their future with this broken child.

Madoka sat up supporting herself with both arms behind her back. She saw what she saw yesterday and knew enough about Homura’s parents too not to see anyone enviable just for having parents. She wanted to defend Yuma but her very first move pierced her head with burning pain. Then every single heartbeat shot another imaginary bullet through her brain. She groaned in pain.

“Madoka... It’s the Cortexiphan, isn’t it?”

Homura wasn’t asleep anymore, the pain woke her up too.

“I knew that I wouldn’t get away with this much... I’m sorry that you have to endure it too...”, she answered with a lopsided smile Homura couldn’t see in the darkness anyway. Madoka held her hands against her eyes and forehead and took a few deep breaths.

They lurched to their feet very slowly. The pain made them nauseous so they couldn’t even think of having a breakfast and they planned to bathe in the fountain soon so they had nothing else to do before leaving. They woke up Nyameka and said goodbye to her too. Mami escorted them to the church gate by her phone’s light then the two could see enough under the unusually faintly illuminated sky of the two adjoining cities.

They crossed the rail tracks near the church with muscles aching from the run yesterday then they crept from tree to tree in the unkempt park until they reached the riverside. The eastern horizon was already glowing in blue and the rest of the sky wasn’t black silk anymore. They saw the end of two bridges: one was made of steel and concrete and led to the island where their former school and Mami’s house were. The other was a shallow pool built upon a hot spring, full of water lilies, even at winter. This one hopefully opened to another universe.

They picked the darkest corner where no one could see them then slipped into the lukewarm water. Madoka covered her eyes and plugged her ears then laid on her back floating close to the surface. Homura tried to hold her hand without distracting her and waited.

“I’m so sorry, Homura-chan, I can’t... I’m going around in circles, my head is full of thoughts and... you are inside too. I may need you to take a dose too.”

Homura thought it over. There seemed to be no right solution. It didn’t matter whether they’d use their remaining Cortexiphan or not, she saw no way back. If they could be fast enough on the other side and get to the other Madoka’s home before the effect would fade away, then maybe... She couldn’t even imagine what the Goddess’ parents would do if they saw them, but she didn’t have any better idea.

“If you think that I need it more than you...”, she began. Madoka smiled at her and nodded. She fished the little waterproof package out of her pocket.

“Are you sure?”, Homura asked, just to be safe.

Madoka handed her the syringe and the ampule they got for the way back.

Homura had never tried such a big dose. Now she tried to relax and turn off her own consciousness to let Madoka lead them both. It seemed that Cortexiphan began to cause hallucinations in this amount. She heard footsteps somewhere behind. Perhaps they were their own steps. She was running together with the other girl along a dark, empty corridor. The floor, the ceiling, the walls were covered with a checkerboard of black and white stone blocks, the only colorful thing in this monochrome world was Madoka’s pink hair. She was running right before her, right ahead then circling up the black and white spiral stairs.

“Freeze!”, the silhouettes shouted. They stepped out of the walls and followed them. They were dazzling black and white at once to contrast black and white stones as well. Madoka didn’t look at them but kept running like she was running for her life.

“It’s the Civil Protection here! Leave the fountain at once! You are under arrest!”

Homura couldn’t tell if reality filtered in their visions or she was just imagining those silhouettes, but she was sure that there was no way back. They were standing before a huge steel gate locked by two rows of heavy fasteners. Madoka planted her feet then grabbed the lever that moved the fasteners and pulled it with all her might. A bullet whizzed past as it glanced off the metal. Homura sprang to the lever and pulled it together with the other girl. Another bullet hit the gate between them. The heavy gate opened slowly and they fell through, into the unknown darkness.


	9. Rigid Paradise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Parallel Worlds, Why the Hell are These Worlds Parallel?, Counter-rebellion, It's Time Again, Reading Steiner, Unk and Boaz in Mitakihara, Ave Maria, Do Devils Dream of Divine Madokas?
> 
> A really learned Kyouko would be a disaster. You wouldn't understand a thing anymore, because she'd have access to my whole brain and even more...

# Rigid Paradise

_v0.901_

“ _Dear Sayaka: They aren't much, God knows - but here are the things I know for sure, and at the end you will find a list of questions you should do your best to find answers to. The questions are important. I have thought harder about them than I have about the answers I have. That is the first thing I know for sure: (1.) If the questions don't make sense, neither will the answers._

_(2.) I am a thing called a magical girl._

_(3.) I am in a place called Mitakihara._

_(4.) I attend a thing called a school._

_(5.) There are more magical girls in the school. Magical girls hunt wraiths that haunt people. The girls collect blackballs which then they give to creatures called Incubators. Incubators are supervised by the real commander of Mitakihara._

_..._

_(15.) Somebody changed everything for some reason._

_(16.) Your head is full of memories you have always had, but some of them are fake._

_(17.) Always keep your eyes open because seeing something you didn't remember may mean you learn another piece of truth._

_..._

_(76.) The world is controlled by two real commanders who always stick together. One is a very thin, raven haired girl. For some reason you know she is the Devil. The other is a tiny pinkette who have just transferred to the school. The Devil's name is Akemi Homura. The pinkette is called Kaname Madoka. Homura is in love with Madoka._

_..._

_(89.) Sayaka, your best friend is a red haired girl called Sakura Kyouko. There's two of her: one of them had come from Kazamino and is in your class. The other is just telling you these, and she probably looks angry but she'll tell everything anyway because she had promised to tell you everything you two learn. This second Kyouko is your best pal. She eats constantly but she isn't fat - probably because she thinks so much. If you want to do her some favor, get her Pocky and apples, these are her favorites. Sakura Kyouko is from another world, that's why she doesn't have an antenna in her head. Kyouko decided to change Mitakihara so she's always watching the school, especially the two real commanders. Every time you learn something new you must tell her, because it’s her job to remember everything that's erased from everyone else's heads. Important things get erased from your head too, so you always have to be prepared!_

_(90.) Be careful! Your uniform has built in camera and microphone to let your best pal see and hear everything you see and hear. Kyouko is almost a magical girl so she can look into your head and can send you messages, but she never does when Homura is around, she uses a radio instead. Homura must not learn that Kyouko is here, because she'd put an antenna in her head too and no one would remember anymore._

_..._

_(104.) Kaname Madoka used to be your best friend, but now you aren't even allowed to talk to her much. If you try, your head is going to hurt. Kyouko said that you can't talk to Madoka because then she'd might realize that she used to be the real commander of the world and Akemi Homura won't allow it._

_(105.) The Devil never sleeps, hence the bags under her eyes. She's always on guard to keep Madoka from learning things she shouldn't. She's watching over you too, but far less than over Madoka, so you have already learned a lot of things. Sometimes she cleans out Madoka's memory too, just like everyone else's. Sometimes she does even rewind time and makes everyone else except your pal forget everything again. Your friend then looks you up and tells you everything. You left her a password no one else knows, that's why you believe her._

_(106.) Akemi Homura dances on Broken Hill nightly, and she meets the Incubators there. That's the only time she leaves Madoka alone, but sometimes Madoka comes to see her. Kyouko said that Madoka loves Homura too, she just forgot about it._

_(107.) Akemi Homura can not be killed. She sometimes purposely jumps into the ravine and she always survives._

_..._

_(141.) Kyouko said that the world used to be full of witches that had become of magical girls. The incubators wanted more witches so they tortured magical girls to break them. Then Madoka ruined their system so everyone could die in peace, because instead of turning into witches they were taken away by her. But the Incubators wanted their witches back so decided to take control of her. Kyouko said that she had even seen the witch they made of Homura to get Madoka, but Homura got them instead._

_(142.) Kyouko said she could have prevented it all, but she had been a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all._

_(188.) Sayaka, you don't have to fight Homura, because it's impossible. You don't even have to judge her. Your goal is to somehow, anyhow make Madoka remember. That's why Kyouko thinks so much, but she couldn't yet find out how. She said she needs a lot of details to find the key. She hopes that she'll have her day soon.”_

* * *

[Mitakihara-2, 6th of April, 2011]

They sat down to have their tasteless breakfast. Several hours had passed since they landed face first into the water lilies in the pond at the bridge yet they didn’t know anything about this world except that something was wrong here too. But they had a lot of time to learn because they were stranded.

As they staggered out of the lukewarm water Madoka looked at Homura sadly and shook her head. The dark haired girl understood: they wouldn’t make it back home. They were stuck here without another dose of Cortexiphan. Then they sat there waiting for the dizziness and nausea go away while the water of the two fountains were dripping from their clothes.

Their only hope was to find Kyouko or at least an alternative of an acquaintance. They asked quite a few students before school but it didn’t help at all. They didn’t know Madoka (it was expected), were talking about Kyouko as ‘that rascal from Kazamino’ and some of them shot frightened looks at Homura. They just forgot to mention why they were afraid of her. Did magical girls have a bad reputation around here? Or they took her for a ghost? The two girls weren’t even sure anymore that they had arrived at the right universe.

They couldn’t possibly reach any other worlds with their primitive method but their closest neighbor, but they couldn’t be sure that their world stayed where Jones’ Device placed it. It had surely changed for the worse, but this one looked idyllic – perhaps too idyllic. There was no sign of the Observers, but could a world without them be their immediate neighbor?

At least the two worlds seemed to be more aligned now: they arrived at the same place where they left their own universe. But the trees in full bloom showed that its time was still different. They checked the date at the first newspaper-vending machine: it was the spring of Walpurgisnacht, even though they were sure that they should have been after the time loop.

They were sitting next to the path in the park in front of the school when they spotted their parallels. They came to school together but there was something disturbing in their demeanor. Even their appearance was an anomaly: the Gods and the dead shouldn’t walk among the living. But at least they knew them in person. These two could probably tell them what happened in this world. They sprang up and they’d have run to them if someone wouldn’t have caught their shoulders from behind.

“You shouldn’t hurry. It would be better if they didn’t notice you.”

It was Miki Sayaka, another one who shouldn’t have been here. They followed her curiously but silently among the trees. Then they stopped hoping that they would finally get some explanation. But Sayaka asked a question instead of explaining anything.

“What’s happened to me in your world?”

Of course. Her mistrust was understandable in this situation.

“I’m terribly sorry, Sayaka-chan...”, Madoka answered. “You turned into a witch and died.”

“Don’t worry, Madoka, I know. But it isn’t enough. How did I die?”

“Kyouko and I tried to bring you back, but we failed.”, Homura said. “You remained inside the subway station of 7th Avenue, frozen in amber. It happened six years ago.”

“This is really something!”, Sayaka cheered like she’d heard some good news. The two looked so puzzled the blunette burst into laughter. Then, seeing their still confused faces she apologized and started her long waited explanation.

“It’s really you two! Kyouko will be delighted! Umm... sorry. You don’t have an idea what a relief can any change be! It’s so depressing when you can’t even trust your own memories... Like everything was fine. The only strange thing was that I was the Devil’s classmate and I didn’t even know what the hell it meant! Then Madoka transferred to my class and Homura went nuts. If I try to talk to Madoka she’ll give me those eyes. Once she even told me that she’d kill me... Even though Madoka is my childhood friend! Sorry, I was talking about the other Madoka and Homura. Our ones.”

“And who is the Devil?”, the dark haired girl asked.

“You. I mean the other Homura. We just call her Akuma Homura. The same way as our Madoka is Madokami. The Goddess.”

Sayaka scratched her head with a distracted smile.

“Sorry, I’m still not used to talking with copies of the same person... We can nicely fool around with our Kyouko, but yours is totally different... she’s the leader of the Resistance!”

“Resistance...?”

“Well... Kyouko and me.”, the blue-haired girl admitted. “But she never does field operations. She says that Akuma Homura doesn’t know about her and that it should stay this way. If she got discovered there would be no one who could remember when the Devil would reset time. She’s the one who tells me what we learned in the past cycles, every time a bit more. Then my memories begin to come back too so I know that she’s telling the truth. From time to time the Devil cleans out my brain but she never does a perfect job, you know.”

“Homura-chan!”, Madoka exclaimed with disapproval in her voice.

“We’re going to find out why she’s doing this!”, Homura answered with determination, instinctively flipping back her hair. Then she interpreted her own gesture. It meant that she was preparing for another war.

“You don’t have to try too hard. We already know.”, Sayaka said. “But you’d better hold on to something. Or, better yet, sit down.”

They were walking on the riverbank so they chose some nice stones to sit on. Sayaka waited for the two to seat themselves then took a significant glance around and finally let it out.

“Because of Madoka. We learned that they are Real Commanders of the world. But for some reason Akuma Homura doesn’t want Madoka to remember so she cleared her memory too. Kyouko said that she had put two and two together and figured out that this is how the Devil protects Madoka from the Incubators. But we should return to our base, Kyouko can tell you better... I know it sounds like I’m stupid and she knows everything but there’s no helping to it... My brain’s regularly cleaned out and I live the same time repeated... I could hardly have a fortnight to learn what I know...”, she scratched the back of her head.

Homura nodded and got up. She began to understand her parallel. If she had to put herself in this Devil’s mind she would probably manage. She didn’t yet know what could they do, but she was sure that the other Homura is deep in her own hell.

* * *

As they entered the hideout Kyouko fell upon their necks with a beaming smile.

“Yes! There _is_ a God!”, she exclaimed and offered some Pocky right away. “You are exactly what I need now, come here, sit down!”

“I’ve heard everything Sayaka told you... now I’ll tell you some more and I’m sure you’ll tell me a few things too. One needs a very good reason to cross over to another universe.”

“We are here because this is our only way to get home. We must find Madoka’s parents.”, Homura answered.

Kyouko anxiously looked at the two. She knew how attached they were to the Kaname parents.

“And why can’t you get home?”

“Because we have an occupied world too. Mitakihara is closed.”, Homura cut the long story short.

“But I don’t think it’s your hostage, then you wouldn’t be here. Especially not together with Madoka.”

“No. It was done by our bald friends whom you photographed at the Power Station. They just popped up, made a nice little blood bath and now they are running the world. We’ve even learned who they are: our very future, the successors of humankind. They see the future and they can even manipulate time to an extent. At least they could come back to us, 600 years in their own past.”

“Then you’ve met your master, Time Lady!”

She earned an annoyed head shake from Homura. The ‘Time Lady’ knew that Kyouko loved to exaggerate. Her present magic was but a mere shadow of its former self. Backed by cutting edge military technology she could take on regular witches but in Hochfeld it couldn’t even save her from being captured. She couldn’t even dream about going back in time like she used to.

Kyouko didn’t let her get lost in thought.

“All right. Let’s deal with the mess here. Because we’ll have to fix it if we ever want to get home. And I can’t just stand by and look how this cute little couple screws up their lives! Hell, they remind me of you two and God knows why, I got a liking of you...!”, she grinned. Then she quickly chewed up the Pocky between her teeth and started to play with another one.

“Sayaka told you the basics but she left out a lot.”

The blue-haired girl tried to object but Kyouko cut her off.

“Of course there are many things you don’t know, Sayaka. Thank that cutie pie Akuma-chan for that... But let’s start at the beginning, back in Hochfeld! You remember when I left with our parallels, right? Well, it was only half the work. They went home, just as planned. But I found myself sitting at the bottom of a mine, in the middle of the Central Plateau of Namibia, just as I should have expected...”

“And we emerged in Kazamino after climbing at least a hundred floors... I’m sorry for messing everything up with that goddamn machine... Believe me, I wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole if I had been myself...”, Homura growled.

“Just wait, here comes the tricky part! Somehow I got back to Japan and finally I was on a train that just arrived to a station. Then blam...! I found myself sitting in the air. Needless to say that I didn’t land gracefully. Then I could hardly dodge another train... You can imagine how happy I was that it hadn’t happened like 12 hours earlier, on the plane, at ten thousand meters... and how much I cursed you!

“Me?”, Homura raised her brow.

“Your alter ego. I staggered to the station and checked a clock. The world had jumped back about two weeks – without me. So I thought that I found the reason and later I saw that I was right. I’ve been on guard since then. I never sleep at any place I haven’t already seen in millisecond one. I wouldn’t like to wake up with a suitcase embedded in my stomach. Good that I found this room, it’s pretty safe, I keep everything in its right place.”

Madoka was listening. She didn’t want to be hasty. She knew that there was even more to it.

“But everything else was well and good. Suspiciously good. I talked with magical girls who hunt some Wraiths and never turn into witches but simply disappear by some karmic law instead. I thought that they’re taken away by this world’s Madoka, just like our friends had said. But then I found this Madoka, right here in Mitakihara! She’s in the same school as you were six years ago, because it’s 2011 here! And Madoka is the new girl in the class. Rings a bell?”

Madoka remembered how she first met Homura: Saotome-sensei announced the arrival of a transfer student. The door opened and a lithe cool beauty entered, with fantastic shiny black hair that reached her thighs. Madoka just sat there, struck dumb, because she had already seen her: in a strange dream, beaten in some brutal fight, crying out to Madoka casting aside her cool pride. Of course it was a memory, filtering in from another timeline. Now they switched places in this world. ‘ _Do devils dream of divine Madokas?_ ’, the pinkette wondered.

“And here comes the part you’ve already heard. Madoka isn’t really here of her own volition. It seems that she was brought back by this self-proclaimed Devil Homura. I don’t even know what happened to the Law that she personifies. Believe me, I didn’t have the stomach to kill a magical girl just to see.”

“Sayaka said something about the Incubators. Something like they threatened Madoka. Do you know anything else about it?”

“It’s just a theory. I could make some sense of Akuma Homura’s scattered words so I think that the Incubators used her to trap Madoka. This was the origin of the witch we saw. I can imagine it hurt her head. But maybe not too much. Honestly, Homura... If you knew you needed a whole world to hide Madoka from their eyes, and you had the power to create one - what would you do? And what would you do if Madoka wanted to break free from that world to help everyone by endangering herself? Listen, Homura – don’t ever do the same. It’s a must-see how royally the other you screwed herself. It’s really something, even by magical girl standards. I recall you from our first days. You tried so hard to be cool and composed, distant and mysterious. But as I watched you it became so obvious that it was a facade... Now she’s the same, just much more mental. She curses herself a thousand times, she’d run to Madoka but she’s afraid for her, of her. She’s full of guilt and suicidal intent. I’ve seen her smash a hole in a concrete wall. With her forehead. The she spent an hour scrubbing the blood from her face while Madoka kept trying to drag her to the infirmary. I’ve seen her jump off a cliff. I’ve seen her step in front of a train. But she can endure everything except what’s inside.”

Homura swallowed hard. She tried to keep calm while she saw tears forming in Madoka’s eyes.

“Homura-chan, we must help them!”, the pinkette exclaimed. She sprang up kicking over her chair in the process. It noisily tipped over while Madoka was standing there leaning against the top of the table with her fists, staring ahead with knitted brows as a picture of determination.

“I knew that I could count on you!”, Kyouko said with a fanged grin while she stood the chair back to its place. “Homura, do you agree? Will you let Madoka be a substitute Goddess for a while?”

“What...?”, Homura gaped at the redhead.

“You two are so attached that I don’t think you could do anything alone without talking it over in time. And it’s not even safe: you’ll have to entrust Madoka to your lunatic alternative... although I don’t think she could harm her, even now, we have a good reason to worry about ourselves!

“Madoka wants to go...”, Homura answered submissively.

“It’s no good, Homura! For some reason I feel that you’re still not fully convinced... but at least you took a step towards not turning into such a ‘devil’. Congratulations! Whatever, it’s up to you two to talk about it later. I can’t really see any other chance than waking up this other Madoka, though. It shouldn’t be too hard because Akuma Homura has to constantly keep an eye on her. A few days should be enough, I guess. I’ve already prepared everything because Sayaka and me have been spying on them the same way. We’ve hidden a bug and a camera in her uniform and we set up a mobile connection. I usually borrow Sayaka’s laptop and use it to record every important moment.

Then she turned to Madoka juggling with an apple.

“Come here, in the middle! We’ll turn you into a schoolgirl Madoka!”

The pinkette stepped to the center of the room. Kyouko bit the apple while looking her over.

“We have a good start! For example, your hair is perfect. You don’t even need ribbons, she often forgets them too. But we still have to change a few things. We should make you even peachier with some makeup. You’ll have to learn to apply it yourself in case you’d have to substitute her for a few weeks. We’ll get a kit so you can practice. Then you should bend a bit if you don’t want to get caught in the very first second. You’re as tall as Homura now!”

“Like this?”, Madoka asked from an inch or two lower.

“Better.”, Kyouko nodded. “Though it would be easier to replace Homura. Ours is the spitting image of the Devil, we’d only have to do something to her eyes.”

“I’ll be fine with the makeup, I’ve learned a lot from Mom.”, Madoka smiled.

Then Kyouko had a good look at Madoka’s fatigues.

“Switch clothes with Sayaka! I’d like to see you in school uniform!”

Madoka was a late bloomer. While Homura had already stopped growing when they met the tiny pinkette caught up later in height and passed her otherwise.

“Well... you’ve grown a bit!”, the redhead remarked on Madoka’s chest. ”Not too bad, you must be about my size. I don’t think she’d notice in this uniform. At least it fits a bit better. You won’t have the time to switch clothes with the other Madoka anyway, we’ll have about twenty-five seconds to replace her.

Kyouko stood in silence for a while, studying her attire.

“But the hardest part is always the role play.”, she said after the pause. “Fortunately their Madoka has just come back from America and she doesn’t have a clue about anything so you won’t have to cram too much. But keep in mind that you haven’t seen Sayaka for years and above all you don’t know Homura! But it’s true after all - you really don’t know her. She’s not your Homura but a mysterious stranger in your new class. She’s cryptic and puzzling but she attracts your eyes for some reason. You don’t know why you like her but you find her very interesting. No! Jesus Christ, don’t even try this gaze! Madoka isn’t like that! I want to see a shy look. Like this, very good.”

Sayaka couldn’t help laughing. Kyouko paused for a few seconds then she continued.

“We’ve done a good deal of spying on them, poor Sayaka had her memory erased several times for it. But now we have a rough idea about their relationship. You can be scared if Homura gives you a reason. You can pity her, sometimes even we do, and it’s not for nothing. We know that she just plays the Devil and we don’t want to do any harm to her. You’ll follow her to give a good picture about her to the other, clueless Madoka. And, of course, to give Homura back to her unharmed. It’s up to Madokami to judge her.”

Kyouko’s words seemed to scare Madoka.

“Sorry, it might have been a bit ominous... Okay, I remember, Olivia said that her alter ego wasn’t that nice, let alone Walternate! And I know that we’re talking about a God and a rebel angel, or something like that. But as I watched them they always reminded me of you two so I don’t think she’d skin her alive. But I don’t think that she’d let her toy with the world like this either. And when she’s in charge again she might even be able to help us back home. She’s a Goddess, after all... but I’ll tell her a few words on Homura’s behalf, is that okay?

“And what about Madokami? Isn’t she threatened by Kyubey’s kind? This world is perfect to hide her from them, but won’t they continue where they stopped if we free her?”

“I don’t think that Akuma Homura really needs to do it, she’s just too afraid to stop. You should see what she’s done to the Incubators!”, Kyouko grinned. “She might not be exactly right in the head, but she has my respect for that one. We don’t have to worry about them. They are responsible to her in person and it seems that they feel all the grief they collect from the magical girls so they aren’t that eager anymore... I’d be happy to show you some records but I couldn’t find any way to transfer them between cycles. That’s why she mustn’t learn about us. If we forget what we want to do we’ll be screwed!”

“Kyouko and Homura can only watch you from here, Madoka, but I’ll be always around to help you out in case of any trouble.”, Sayaka added. “I have nothing to lose. You know: everything I know I only know because Kyouko told me.”

“And you believe her without question?”, Homura asked.

“I left a password to her. Something only I could know. This is the proof that I really hear my own memories from her. I suggest you to do the same. Just in case.”

“She has already believed me at least two dozen times.”, Kyouko added with a dead serious face.


	10. Mystic Oriental Love Consultation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short intermezzo before the storm. The stage has been set, something stirs behind the curtains... Will there be a countdown?
> 
> Tags: Kaname Madoka, Sakura Kyouko, Soul Magnets, Creepy Stalker, Panty Thief, Press For You
> 
> Beta read: shiNIN

# Mystic Oriental Love Consultation

_v0.9_

They watched a pile of records about the interaction of the other Madoka and Homura then Kyouko sent Sayaka home to sleep a few hours. When the blunette left she had a walk around the neighborhood and took a bath in the river. She could never stand confinement let alone orderly life, yet she had too much of them lately so she needed some fresh air and open space. By the time she returned the light was already fading. The sight of Madoka alone under the bridge took her by surprise, she thought the couple inseparable.

“We’re preparing for tomorrow.”, the pinkette explained. “We haven’t been farther than a meter from each other since Hochfeld. Soul gems work from a hundred meters but we don’t know what would happen if we got separated, even though we’ll have to part tomorrow, or any time we start with this plan. So I came here to try it and let Homura-chan sleep. I’m too wide awake and I’m afraid I’d mix my thoughts in her dreams... or something like that. And I know that she badly needs some rest. She’s been so easily exhausted lately and sometimes she... isn’t really here.”

“Sorry for not asking... I had to take care of so many things. What happened to her? It sounds like something’s wrong with her magnets...”

“Then it seems you haven’t heard everything. But it’s probably something you should have seen instead. Jones drew a lot of blood from Homura-chan and injected her magnets in me. We’ve been a bit... mingled since then. We feel each other’s emotions, the pain, even some thoughts... Probably because she’s partly outside of her body. It might be because she lost too much magnets. Please don’t give me that look! I know that it’s very dangerous to your ilk... and I know that it’s been a long time for you... but it just happened yesterday for us! Walbey is waiting at the University, he can examine her, but we’ll have to return to our Mitakihara to get there!”

Kyouko sat silent, her eyes fixed on Madoka. She had a good deal to think about.

“I feel sorry for Homura.”, she said after a minute of silence. “She had way more than her share. It’s good that you’re there for her. I have something else to worry about.”

“What’s that?”

“You. I’ve already said that I can’t imagine the other Madoka skin alive Akuma Homura. But I don’t know what would that other Homura do to you if we got caught. I know what you think about her but I’m afraid that she’s completely insane.”

Madoka took a deep breath. Kyouko, counting on a long monologue, grabbed a Pocky with her teeth and started to play with it. Madoka didn’t mind, she knew that this time it’s a sign of the redhead’s attention.

“Because you don’t know Homura-chan well enough. Of course you know a lot about her, but there are things she won’t show to you. You know all too well what media tells about her – when they care about us at all, I mean. When this whole mess with magical girls and witches became public Homura-chan’s story suddenly got very popular. Then they started to write articles that made her look like a creepy stalker who stops time to grope me and steal my panties and they pitied the hell out of me for being with a pervert who was just using me.”

“I do remember... I’m glad that Mami took over the PR...”, Kyouko sighed. “I’ve always hated publicity but those idiots had really gone too far! I’d happily send all these fucking slanders into a labyrinth to let them scribble their bullshit to the witch. She would surely give them the reward they deserve!”

“But the main thing is”, the pinkette went on, “that they’re all horribly wrong. It’s true that Homura-chan would do almost anything for me. But they don’t seem to realize that they’ve turned everything upside down. They have no idea how vulnerable Homura-chan is. It wrenches my heart to think about what she’d do should something happen to me. Or the things I could do to her should I be a worse person.”

Kyouko would have had a few ideas for her about those things but a look at Madoka’s dead serious face stopped her from grinning.

“There are things they better not know.”, she said nodding her head understandingly. “Looks like Jones realized and nothing good came of that... Don’t worry, Madoka, I’ll keep my mouth shut. Isn’t that what friends are for?”

She pulled out another Pocky and handed it to Madoka. It felt better to talk while they both were chewing something.

“But, back to your concern... it’s not groundless at all. Even I couldn’t get my head around why Homura-chan didn’t seem to worry about me, it just... wasn’t like her. We had a talk about it while you were away and she said that you weren’t wrong at all when you compared them to the two of us. She told me how she connected this other Homura back in Hochfeld and she’s perfectly sure that she just couldn’t have done any harm to me, even as the witch she was. She said that she’s positive that I’m safe. And it’s more than enough for me.”

Kyouko had just finished her Pocky and she seemed to have finished the conversation too.

“Whatever, you know her better. You should go back to look after Homura. You won’t see each other for a while, after all. I’ll stay here until ten. Then Sayaka checks in and I’ll have to be there for the night watch. Try to get some sleep. It’s been difficult for the devil lately, we may wake up in a new time tomorrow.


	11. Hopeless Masquerade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ummm... this is the odd one. The title is from a game and not a song... a Touhou game, though.
> 
> Tags: Argentum Tuum Hortum, Mitakihara-2, Silver Garden, Broken Hill, Impossible Girls, Watermelon, Muskmelon, White Collar Guerilla, Highly Responsible for the Tamed
> 
> New light on the influence map: alleluiamagiatsuioku's Argentum Tuum Hortum. A great depiction of the Homu-ballet in the stinger of Rebellion. The situation is entirely different though and I'm thankful, I'd have stolen too many things from her otherwise... Oh, and there's some Little Prince too...
> 
> Beta read by shiNIN.

# Hopeless Masquerade

_v0.911_

The three girls were hiding in the bushes, watching the students as they walked to school. Everything was peaceful, the only unusual thing was only visible through the UN/VP standard issue binoculars they passed from hand to hand: Akuma Homura’s spooky child familiars gleefully ran up and down the path then stopped under a tree to sponge apples from the other Kyouko who was sitting among the branches feeding the birds. The binoculars were just passed to Madoka when Kyouko warned her:

“Madoka, it’s time to get ready. You’re about to see yourself appear at the corner. Sayaka is going to reach Homura at the same time. I haven’t told her too much but I don’t even need to. When a new cycle begins she always knows what Homura has done and they always get into a quarrel. Of course Homura clears her brain after that so we’ll have to talk with her again. But it’s our problem. You just have to run as fast as you can when you see Oktavia. We’ll follow you and hijack the other Madoka. You can leave the binoculars here, we’ll pick them up later. We’re going to pick up Sayaka too in the afternoon, she’ll be fine for now.”

When Madoka looked into the binoculars the children were already gone followed by the other Kyouko’s perplexed gaze. Then Madoka aimed her telescopic gaze at the table in the middle of the path. She couldn’t see the details from this distance but she knew who was sitting under the parasol: that person was wearing a school uniform and her long black hair fluttered in the wind. Miki Sayaka stopped behind her and started talking to her.

“Ten seconds to go!”, Kyouko whispered to the pink haired girl.

She was right: while the other Homura remained perfectly calm, Sayaka’s gestures became angrier. As she straightened her back the torso of the mermaid witch emerged from the river. Madoka did as Kyouko told: she dropped the binoculars, dashed to her parallel then began to walk by her side. The other Madoka’s eyes widened in surprise but she didn’t even have the time react, she got dragged to the bushes by both hands.

The shock silenced her, but her assailants covered her mouth anyway.

“We mean no harm to you but we don’t need any attention either. Please come with us quietly.”, her kidnappers whispered in her ear. Two girls, somewhat taller and older than Madoka. The larger one had fiery hair slightly past her shoulders, most of it tied in a ponytail. The shorter one wore an incredible flow of silky raven hair which split in two in an astonishing swallowtail. They were dressed in identical grey camouflage uniforms and they seemed to have firearms too – but Madoka could only catch a glimpse of their faces.

They escorted her away from the busy neighborhood of the school to a deserted riverbank, right below a bridge. The redhead took a bobby pin from her hair and opened the iron door on the side of the pier. Madoka could see two bunk beds, a table, a fridge and a few shelves inside. There was an open laptop on the table showing the classroom where she should have already arrived. Madoka guessed that the camera was smuggled in by her surrogate. Her surrogate, who looked exactly like her...

They seated her before the display and the redhead offered Pockys to her. The other leaned against the wall, crooked and panting. Madoka rejected the sweets and turned her eyes away from the sick girl too. She should have been in school where that impostor sat surrounded by _her_ classmates, answering a torrent of curious questions in her stead, questions she couldn’t hear through the muted computer.

“Who are you and what do you want from me?”, she finally asked as she gathered her courage. “It would have been my first day at this school, I hardly know anyone there, I’m not famous and not important to anyone except for my parents. You still took the effort to look up my double, train her to substitute me then kidnap me. Why did you go such lengths? I don’t understand a thing!”

“My name is Akemi Homura.”, the pale, black haired beauty answered in measured tones. With great exertion she pushed herself away from the wall and flipped her gorgeous hair back. Madoka could see a dark hairband adorning her head. “And my friend here is Sakura Kyouko. The girl who went to school in your stead didn’t need to be looked for and she isn’t a mere look-alike of yours. She’s your alter ego from a parallel universe, the same world we’re from. We have our parallels here too, they are in your very class. You’ll see my alternative a lot because she’s our main target. You don’t know right now, but she’s the one you’re more important for than anything in this world. We brought you here because it’s vital that you remember something even we don’t fully know: who you really are.”

Dark thoughts troubled Madoka. These girls had nothing to do with her, but they wanted something from the other Homura whom she didn’t even know. Could they be... assassins? Or, perhaps... she felt something strange as she looked at the dark haired girl’s face. She was a bit older than her and strangely familiar.

“Have we ever met before?”, she vaguely asked.

„Yes, we’ve all met. It wasn’t even too long ago, just a few days to us. Someone connected these two faraway worlds then we fought together for a few hours. But you have a real history with the other Homura. You’ve probably spent years together.”

“And I came here to share some vital knowledge to you.”, Kyouko said. “But somehow I lost my way after the worlds parted. We were in Africa on the other side and I arrived in Africa in this universe too. And by the time I got back here it was already late. I can tell you what I wanted to say when you remember, even though you possibly won’t even need it then. But please listen them for now, any word can help you get your memories back.”

Then she turned up the volume. Madoka’s stand-in spoke on the other side, in a confused tone.

“Homura...-chan...? Why are you showing me around?”

“How does it feel to be back, after so long?”, the other girl asked from outside the frame. She probably walked next to the decoy Madoka.

“Strange... Everything’s familiar and... almost nostalgic. But also kind of different somehow... If I had to pick the one thing that had changed, I’d say it was me...”

“Madoka, are you trying to expose us?!”, Kyouko hissed and picked up the microphone.

“Leave her! She knows what she’s doing! I trust her. Didn’t you show yesterday that she usually says such things? Just look!”, the dark haired girl pointed at the abducted Madoka who stared hypnotized at the screen. She could finally get a glimpse of the other Homura too: she was almost the exact copy of her older version, with the exception of the frightening dark circles around her lavender eyes. She looked weary, on the verge of collapsing. Madoka concluded that there was something wrong with both Homuras.

“Every time I see her she looks worse...”, Kyouko remarked. “Except for the first time when she was a witch, of course...”

“I think I should be somewhere else, in some different world... but now I have to be here with you, Homura-chan.”

The girl with dark rimmed eyes covered the whole screen as she took the other in her arms.

“It’s okay, everything’s all right. You don’t have to worry. You’re exactly where you should be, Madoka!”, they heard her dampened voice through the covered microphone.

“But... so many people need me... So many are looking for me...”

Kyouko whistled with respect.

“This girlfriend of yours blows my mind! She must have had long talks with the Incubators! She keeps lying while telling the truth all along! But she shouldn’t go too far. Something might happen to her... Oh, and you should tell me more later about those baldies that are looking for you two... But let it be another day’s problem.”

“Madoka hates to lie. I don’t even know if she can, I haven’t heard her telling a single lie for the last six years.”, Homura answered.

The younger Madoka was now staring at them.

“Girlfriend...? You mean Homura-chan and I...?”, she blushed.

“You bet!”, Kyouko grinned. “You two are attached at the hip! Just ask Homura where she lives!”

The raven haired girl quickly gestured her to silence.

“But you two are different people. You had different lives. I only know what that tired eyed girl has been through to save you. Then there was a point where you did something else yet similar to what my... our Madoka did. You gave your life to give hope to others. We’d like you to remember this choice.”

Madoka’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“What did I do? I thought I’ve never done anything meaningful in my life, just went from school to school as my mom had to move to new cities because of her job. I’ve always wanted to do something... that matters. To help others...”

The pair of pink eyes looked in the distance.

“Do you treasure this world so much? Do you value its order and stability more than your own desires?”, the dark haired girl on the other side of the screen asked. Madoka fixed gaze on the display again. Flecks of golden light began to dance in her eyes.

“How could I be here if I didn’t, Homura-chan?”, the surrogate Madoka asked in reply.

“Of course. We could as well go home and leave them in this mess...”, Kyouko nodded.

“You couldn’t.”, Homura corrected. ”Only Madoka can take us out of here. We’ll have to get her some Cortexiphan because even she can’t without it. Unless, of course, Madokami sends us back home.”

The younger Madoka listened intently but didn’t comment on the name they called her.

“You’re so strange, Madoka...”, they heard from the speaker. “But, maybe because of it, I fear the day when I’ll be your enemy. But even then I’ll continue to wish for a world in which you will be happy!”

The tired eyed girl took the red ribbons out of her hair and tied Madoka’s tresses in twin tails. She was close to bursting into tears in the process then she almost fell into the camera face first. In her embrace Madoka decided not to try too hard to draw forth her younger parallel’s memories. And she really felt sorry for this other Homura. She was unimaginably powerful but she just suffered timidly reaching for Madoka behind the mask of the demon. She reminded Madoka of the Homura she knew, from back then. The one that had struggled the same way in that senseless time loop. This Devil girl had made a colossal mistake without question. Every Homura seemed prone to make big mistakes when they felt Madoka in danger. But Madoka couldn’t even imagine her being malicious... except, probably, toward the Incubators. This time she really couldn’t say anything and she couldn’t feel angry with her, not even on her parallel’s behalf.

“Homura-chan...”, she whispered and hugged the other girl. She stayed silent while her hands unwittingly started to braid the long loose raven tresses.

“I felt... something.”, the abducted Madoka mumbled on the other side of the screen. “I could have said the same...”

“I believe you.”, she turned to red and black team behind her back. “I even start to get why you couldn’t tell me who I am. It just doesn’t work like that, does it?”

“Would have you believed me if I just had told you that you’re a god?”, Kyouko asked.

“...And what if I’d said that my alter ego took your godly powers and sealed you in this gilded cage? Would have you trusted me then?”, Homura added. “Damnit, I don’t even know how it is possible...!”

“So it was her who took my memories...?”, Madoka asked in surprise. “But she saved me earlier... I can thank her for what I’ve become... Why did she bring me back here to live like it never happened? This way she’s become a stranger to me again...! Poor Homura-chan...!”

She shook her head in disbelief while her eyes glowed in golden light.

“I really don’t know what should I do with her!”

She bowed her head immersed in her thoughts and closed her eyes that returned to pink in the meantime.

“There’s something you should keep in mind, Madoka, because you apparently forgot about it in the past: you become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.”

Homura eyed the floor with a complexion that put Kyouko’s hair in shame. The redhead acknowledged her embarrassment with a content grin. Madoka was a bit upset with her but she saw the truth in her words.

“The Little Prince.”, the red-haired girl said as if nothing had happened. “You wouldn’t have thought that I began to read books, would you? But I almost knocked my head against the wall when I watched the same dull math lesson for the twentieth time! Seriously, Homura, how could you stomach it? Thankfully these mysterious bridge-repairers seem to have boring jobs too so they left a whole little library in this room. But the main thing is, Madoka, that I think you bit off a little more than you could chew. It’s very nice that you wanted to save everyone. But you seem to have let that one Homura slip out of your hands... Open those glittering eyes of yours already and realize how that miserable gal feels...!”

Kyouko wanted to say more but she just gave a resigned wave instead.

“Goddamnit, I can’t even be harsh with you... You have no idea how long I have wanted to tell some home truths to a god. You know, a priest’s daughter can claim such a privilege. And now that we’ve met I can’t even properly scold you...”

While speaking she carefully watched the Goddess’ face. Her words seemed to hit the mark, she could see the yellowish glow in the pink eyes. She hoped that they could awaken her before Akuma Homura would find out the trick...

“Good that Sayaka isn’t here...”, she sighed after a short pause. ”She finds it way too funny... She’s always trying to imagine me in a Miko outfit, no matter how many times I tell her that my old man led a Neo-Christian cult...”

They stayed together in the maintenance room all morning. The lessons were uneventful, everything they wanted to see happened during the breaks. Their Madoka even talked to Sayaka once and they saw the signs of Akuma Homura’s disapproval, but the Devil did nothing to disturb them. She did nothing much anyway, just stayed close to Madoka - and the pinkette always found a way to aim the camera at her. It began to look like Madoka was stalking the poor devil, not the other way around. Kyouko couldn’t help warning her.

“Madoka, our job is not to compromise her but to free her! Just act natural! She won’t do anything interesting if she’s not with you anyway.”

In the distant school Homura’s head snapped up and she seemed to glare right into their eyes through the display but she calmed down in the end. In the very moment she turned away Kyouko disconnected the microphone and locked it away.

But she couldn’t keep it there for too long – she had to lend it to the amnesiac goddess soon. The stand-in Madoka could finally get away from her dark haired shadow and ‘her’ family and sat down in her parallel’s room. She tried to put the other Madoka’s things and her thoughts in order. She was shocked to see how seriously the poor Homura could break herself. A strangely familiar voice woke her from this thought.

"Hi, Madoka! It's Madoka here.”, the doubly abducted deity greeted her. ”I'd like you to do something for me. It would be an evening walk. There’s a trail at the end of our street. You probably know it too. It leads right up to the park on Broken Hill. Please wait until my parents fall asleep then go to the hilltop. I believe that place is called Silver Garden. I remember that we often meet with Homura-chan there. I feel that it’s important that you find her there. Important enough that we should be somewhere around there too.”

Then she was alone again, encompassed by heavy silence. Of course she knew the hill and the park, only the names were new to her.

She fumbled in her wardrobe for something to wear and found a grey skirt and a pink cardigan for the cool evening. Then she just sat there for a while staring straight ahead. This role play would possibly come to an end earlier than she had expected. The Goddess who had been a helpless little girl a few hours ago seemed quite confident now.

She took a deep breath and went down to the kitchen to have dinner with her family. She tried to behave like she wasn’t even there, she knew that she should have had a lot of common forged memories with ‘her’ family. All the time she had the unpleasant feeling that ‘her’ parents knew that the one eating with them wasn’t their daughter. She had probably never had such an awkward dinner before. She might have feared the end of this masquerade before – but now she longed for it. She pretended going to sleep then got up as soon as the house grew silent. She put the prepared clothes on and sneaked through the front door. She suspected that the others had just left too, so she walked slowly to leave them enough time to take their posts.

As she roamed the empty streets she imagined hearing footsteps, whispering, stifled giggles. From time to time she turned around, but she could never see anyone. Jones’ murderers came to her mind, the mysterious children she could only see through the VP binoculars this morning. She was quite positive that she was safer guarded by Akuma Homura’s familiars than she could have been in the middle of a JSDF base, yet she shivered at the thought.

As she left the street behind and began to tread the twisty trail she understood the name of the hill and why it wasn’t called the same way in her own world. In the Mitakihara she had grown up in there was an orderly, round hill here. But half of _this_ hill was missing, like it was literally broken in two by a ravine. And someone was standing up on the peak, at the edge of the abyss. Madoka quickened her pace.

She stopped panting on the grassy hilltop, surrounded by silverberry trees. That someone was really Homura, leaping and spinning in trance on the clearing. The street lights and the moon played on her ebony hair and ivory skin carving a fantastic living picture of light and shade in the grayish night. Her low-cut dress was made of thin darkness, seemingly on the verge of peeling off her childlike curves, bony wings with black feathers graced her exposed back. Dirty white bundle of rags laid shivering at her feet: an Incubator. The miserable creature crowned the insane ballet in which Homura danced her entire life. Then the girl stopped at the edge of the cliff, tiptoeing on one foot in a circle of lamplight. Her eyes met Madoka’s while her lips curved into a mischievous little smile. She bowed deeply and gracefully, spread her arms and wings then leaned back, right into the gaping abyss behind her. As if on cue, the Incubator sprang up and flew from the hill in panic.

“Homura-chan!”

Madoka couldn’t help yelling. She ran to the edge where the other girl had just been standing, but there was no one around and no body down at the foot of the cliff, just a bunch of black feathers floating in midair. Her eyes scanned the skyline in hope of seeing Homura in-flight. Then all of a sudden a pair of thin arms in black gloves shot over her shoulders and embraced her from behind.

“Are you scared, Madoka?”, the demon whispered in her ears in a seductive tone. “Don’t fear for me, I can’t die! I’m impossible, just like you... but what are you doing here in the night?”

“I was looking for you. I was worried.”, the pinkette answered.

”...for me?”, Homura asked in reply. “You don’t even know me. You’re merely being kind, too kind. It must be your nature. Poor devil, she must be suffering in her own hell. Poor devil, she must have broken her every bone. This was what you thought, wasn’t it? But my bones are fine, nothing’s broken but my heart, Ma-do-ka...”

Homura’s embrace tightened, Madoka felt the other girl’s tiny breasts pressing against her back through their clothes.

“Homura-chan, you’re really scaring me...”

“It’s just natural. I’m not the one who used to be by your side. I’ve changed, and the whole world changed with me. Can you see the moon? It won’t ever be full. It’s like me... I’ll forever hunger for my Madoka whom I imprisoned.

The surrogate Goddess hoped that her other self heard these elusive yet straightforward words. They must have been cryptic and crazy for her, but probably the exact ones she needed to hear. Then Homura suddenly let go of her shoulders, stepped around her and looked straight into her eyes.

“Madoka... I can still call you like this, can’t I?”

She flashed a mocking smile at the sight of pupils contracting into dark pinpoints in the pink sea of the other girl’s eyes.

“Did you really believe that I wouldn’t notice? You tried to fool _me_? I spent a third of my life meeting Madoka after Madoka! And, believe me, I’ve observed each one very carefully. But you aren’t alone, are you? I was curious what you were up to so I’ve been waiting... I might be late by now... I might be not... But who cares?”

She cast an unhinged grin at the other girl while purple runes danced and popped in the air around her. They horrified Madoka who couldn’t help reading them. “Kill me!” “I’ve had enough!” “Glory to Death!”

Homura raised her hands and clapped. Red and grey fruit fell out of a nearby tree: it was Sakura Kyouko. Three familiars stood behind her, nudging her to feet with their long needles while two other children laughed at her from above. Then Sayaka, the second Homura and the golden eyed Madoka stepped out of the bushes, followed by more children with needles and their own confiscated guns held at their backs. Now the girls could observe them all too well: Akuma Homura’s elite soldiers were dolls in funeral dresses, with rosy paint on their faces and pointy teeth. They were all unique pieces with different hair styles and dresses, even their height wasn’t the same.

The demon clapped again, but this clap wasn’t a command to her army but a mere compliment to the four girls. She gracefully danced around them. One by one she put a finger under their chins and stared into their eyes. Her voice trembled as she spoke.

“I can’t believe how long arms you have! You never cease to surprise me. Madoka, you sacrificed yourself when I gave up at Walpurgisnacht and saved me. Then I built a labyrinth, but you four dragged me out of there too. Even a whole new world wasn’t enough to hide from you. Leave me alone already! Can’t you realize how hideous thing I’ve done?! Madoka trusted me so I betrayed her. She was majestic so I stripped her from her power. She was clean so I dragged her down to the dirt! I made a mockery of the world she loved so much! I deserve no mercy! I don’t even ask for it, just for a nook to hide and watch Madoka... I want to see her happy at last, to see this miserable world giving her all the good things she deserves! To see her live without sacrificing herself in her foolish selflessness! Madoka, I know that you want a normal life here, down on Earth! You said yourself that you’d suffer out there alone! Now everyone’s here, even I’m here, I play for you as you wish!”

She was already shouting at this point. She collapsed from the strain, leaning on her dark gloved hands in the grass to keep herself from falling even deeper.

“Schauspielerin!”, the dolls assessed her acting. They burst into jeering and pelted her with tomatoes. Madoka couldn’t stand it anymore. She pushed aside her guardians and stepped in front of Homura to protect her from the raining vegetables. Her eyes glowed with a yellow light of pity and anger.

“Madoka, for goodness sake, what are you doing?!”, the demon sobbed. “Stop it, be selfish at once, at least a little!”

The next glint of the Goddess’ eyes could be seen even from behind.

“But I _am_ selfish, Homura-chan...! I protect what’s mine!”

The dolls dropped the tomatoes in terror and raised their hands to their mouths. Then they saluted to Madoka with their long needles as she helped their Mistress to her feet.


	12. Demystify Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time to form an alliance of two universes and show you what the three girls were doing in a Shinto shrine gate...
> 
> Tags: Bringing up children (from hell), Magical Girl Conspiracy, 2x14, Godservice, They Can't Stop Meddling in Time
> 
> Beta read: shiNIN.

# Demystify Feast

_v0.91_

All the four “resistance fighters” were standing in front of the familiar house on the next evening. They waited for Homura to recover after the barely kilometer-long walk then Madoka rang the doorbell. She wasn’t exactly sure that her home’s key wouldn’t open this door but it would have been impolite to simply drop in the house.

“Homura-chan, could you open the door?”, they heard from the inside. A few moments later they could enter. They could only see Akuma Homura’s back for a moment as she instantly slipped back to the kitchen.

“What the hell is wrong with her?”, Kyouko asked staring where she disappeared.

“Don’t you understand?”, Homura asked in reply. “It’s simple. She feels guilty for setting her goons upon us. Just look how much she’ll tremble before Madoka for her play last night...”

They found the runaway demon with Tomohisa and Madokami. The three were wearing aprons, decorating a huge cake. Father and daughter seemed having fun while Homura focused on her job with a timid smile. The newcomer Madoka watched her and remembered her home six years ago. Her desperate savior, the honored dead of the great Mitakihara battle had taken the way her family treated her with the same shy disbelief. Just like this Devil who turned the whole world upside down with her infinite power. It did not seem to matter what had Homura been through, she remained herself.

The demon’s double felt someone tugging the leg of her pants. She looked down and saw the little brother of this world’s Madoka.

“Maroka, two devils!”, the child laughed. Homura smiled and stroked his messy hair.

Junko stepped into the kitchen stylishly dressed and directed her son to his father. Then she took a careful but completely unsurprised look at her guests. Apparently Madokami had prepared her family well. The others left to change their clothes and Tomohisa took Takkun with him.

“So this is what you look like when you aren’t substituting my daughter!”, Junko glared at Madoka with narrow eyes. Then, without warning, she burst into laughter.

“I see you won’t ever catch up to me! How old are you? Twenty?” she asked the pinkette who was still shorter than her. “You may scold your father for not feeding you properly!”

Then she looked Homura up and down with a grin.

“You know what? You can put him in his place too! You’re just as skinny as my Madoka is tiny! You look exactly like this poor ‘devil’... But, it seems, you got better otherwise.”

Junko’s grin had already disappeared by now, she talked seriously to the dark haired girl.

“I’m glad to see. Our Homura looks so disturbed, no surprise that Madoka won’t let her go! I’ve never seen her like this, she defends her to the end... I start to believe that our daughter has really become something else. But I also know that this is how we raised her. You reap what you sow, don’t you? We have room for Homura, we’d just like to fix her... Do you live with Madoka’s family too? How did they treat you?”

Her question embarrassed the raven haired girl. How could she tell the things that happened to her in the Kaname household? Would she help the other Homura by telling? They were similar, yet different... Madoka saw her trouble and helped her out.

“Just forget that you have gods living in your house! Everything Homura-chan needs is a normal life with a normal family, because she never had one. She needs you all. Mom and dad have always been great at it and I’m sure that you’ll be great too! You should have seen Homura-chan after she spent two months frozen in amber! Believe me, she was just as broken.”

“It’s funny... I expected that one day you’d give me advice, but I’d have never imagined that this day would arrive so soon...”, Junko sighed. “Thank you, Madoka.”

Then she hugged Homura.

“Life isn’t always fair. I don’t think that any you would have deserved to suffer so much. But you’re right, this is why you have a family standing by you.”

“She’ll may protest, but she needs it...”, Homura said, still embarrassed. She felt strangely awkward in another Junko’s arms, like the comforting hug was meant for someone else.

“Good. We’ll give her share of this too! Won’t us, sweetheart?”, she turned to her husband who just got back to the kitchen.

“We’ll do what?”, he asked cheerfully.

“Fix Homura-chan!”

“Of course!”, Tomohisa nodded.

Kyouko came next. Junko patted her shoulder for her firm handshake.

“So you’re Sakura Kyouko. My daughter hasn’t brought any of you yet, but don’t feel shut out of the fun!”

She seated the three girls and poured four shots of whisky then quickly swallowed hers.

“Stop sulking, Sayaka! You can join us in a few years!”, she laughed ruffling her fourth guest’s blue hair.

“I had my first drink at your age!”, Madoka teased.

“Oh, really?”, Junko shot a surprised look at her. Her daughter had always obeyed this rule to the letter - but still, a shadow of a doubt crossed the woman’s mind.

“It was Mom who offered me the drink.”, Madoka added. “I had a terrible hangover next day.”

“Then I don’t think it’s a lighthearted story...”, Junko eyed her empty glass.

“It happened that night when Homura-chan stayed in the amber at the place we just call Walpurgis Memorial. We all thought that she died or even worse. And I knew that she did it for me and that she had no other choice, she couldn’t have lasted another day anyway. She had struggled for years to save me then when she finally succeeded she was doomed. No one should have to endure what she felt...”

“Was this after Walpurgisnacht?”, the returning Madokami asked. She had probably let her hair down with some mysterious magic because it flowed longer than that of Homura – but she stuck to her twin tails and bows. Her long dress was white and frilly and the inside of the skirt seemed to reflect the Universe itself. Her eyes glowed in golden light. She entered hand in hand with Akuma Homura who wore the same costume as last evening on the hilltop but hid her wings.

“I’m still not sure what to think about this girl.”, Junko admitted to her guests. “These are quite daring clothes for such a timid little mouse. And the things my Madoka told about her... Anyhow, this dress just doesn’t suit her.”

“It can’t be helped, Mom! That outfit belongs to her, just like this white one belongs to me. And yes, I think that it’s cute! Don’t say bad things about Homura-chan! She’s a good girl.”

“You drag her home like a stray kitten and defend her with tooth and nail, then you say she’s the Devil herself, and now she’s a good girl...! Madoka, you really don’t make your mother’s life easy! At least you should have given her a pair of socks to stuff that dress a little...”, Junko laughed.

“I change back to my uniform...”, Akuma Homura mumbled deeply blushed and turned back. Junko looped a friendly but firm arm around her shoulder and didn’t let her run off.

“Oh, come on! Have a little confidence! Madoka loves you the way you are, what else can matter? Don’t listen to the ramblings of an eccentric old hag! I can only wish to be as young and beautiful as you!”

“But Kaname-san... you are still so beautiful!”, the girl answered with downcast eyes. She just couldn’t figure Madoka’s mother out.

“You didn’t say that I’m young!”, Junko laughed. “I’m too old even for the Devil!”

The pink-eyed Madoka giggled. She didn’t even know why she turned to her alter ego.

“You know, Madoka, my Homura-chan was exactly like her and I introduced her the very same way: a good girl. Right after she confessed some very steep things from an earlier timeline.”

“I don’t even know which Homura-chan is the bigger devil!”, the yellow eyed girl winked. She knew everything they did for the two of her, she saw the city one Homura burned up (it would have been ruined by Walpurgis very soon) and the world the other turned upside down (the Incubators had already been preparing to take it over from Madoka), and she felt everything they felt. Even though she had no intention to hurt them she found teasing the too serious, too sad girls strangely amusing.

Now the two black haired girls were equally embarrassed. Each Madoka cupped the cheek of her Homura and gently comforted her. Kyouko hadn’t found them so funny since her two friends could finally bring themselves to admit that they really loved each other – but seeing them in duplicate was just too much. She found their identical gestures immensely amusing and she wasn’t the only one.

“Talking about outfits... Is this some kind of uniform?”, Tomohisa asked her daughter’s alter ego when she sat down again. The guests couldn’t help coming in their grey camouflage uniforms, Kyouko’s was quite worn at that – but they could at least clean them in the river.

„Something like that. I don’t know what Madoka told you about them, but we are the magical girls of our world. At least we’d like to be the only ones, because the real ones are dying. So we took on the task of witch hunting and fixing time-space anomalies.”, Madoka answered. “We just need a little sensitivity to magic. Homura-chan and Kyouko-chan had been magical girls before they joined. I hadn’t but I have some natural talent so I don’t need anything but a little Cortexiphan before missions. Oh, and we try to save as many girls as we can before they could turn into witches!”

It had all been true before the Observers arrived... but she didn’t want to mention them on this beautiful evening.

“So you’re a bit like our Madoka.”

“A little bit.”

Madoka and Homura found their other selves and both pairs asked each other curiously about their life and world. They learned that they had followed the same path for a long time, then they took a different turn at a very distinct point of time. As magical girls they couldn’t break free from the Incubators’ trap, but one Madoka found a wish to overturn their system. The other Homura kept fighting - but for the first time in many years she asked for and received help from where she hadn’t even expected.

Now that she thought it over Homura froze in the middle of a sentence. She didn’t understand how the memory could emerge so suddenly and how it could hide until now. It was bright and clean just like in a flash of lightning. She recalled the whole scene as she had seen - then forgotten.

“Impossible! I can’t believe it...! Listen, Homura, I can’t tell you now, but I think I remembered what happened at _that_ point! I know why we are still human while you two became gods! I know that you’d be happier if Madoka had stayed human, but you really shouldn’t! I’ll tell you everything after dinner!”

The meal was great, just as they expected from Tomohisa – any Tomohisa. After the exquisitely creamy strawberry cake (which naturally reminded both Homuras of the magical Madoka) Junko showed the guests around and offered them to spend the night in the house telling that Sayaka had already had sleepovers there before they moved to America. The house was almost like they remembered, except for a few things things that were still in boxes.

“You may use this room. Unfortunately it’s still a bit empty but we have a few spare futons.”, Junko opened an apparently unused chamber. “It’ll be Homura’s room, but it’s still lacking furniture.”

“This is hers in our house too.”, said the uniformed Madoka. “But she doesn’t use it too much, she’s always with me.”

They shared a smile, hands intertwined.

One by one they all took a shower and gathered in Madoka’s room.

“Sorry, mom, we’d like to discuss a few things among ourselves...”, the golden eyed goddess said, now in pajamas.

“Well, well, are you plotting some mischief? Maybe you really have the Devil among you!”, she pinched her daughter’s cheek.

“It’s a magical girl conspiracy!”, Madokami laughed.

“Then you should definitely keep Sayaka here as she’s the only magical girl in your company, correct?”

“Well... She’s almost one.”, the Goddess archly admitted.

The girls pushed two low tables together and sat around them.

“Come, Homura-chan!”, Madokami patted the pillow next to her. Akuma Homura quickly took her place. The Goddess smiled, tugged her closer and began to stroke her dark, flowing tresses.

Sayaka gritted her teeth at the sight. Her chaotic memories from the many disordered timelines proved stronger than her recent experience.

“Hands off of her you demon!”, she snapped at the raven haired girl. “I know what you’re up to! You entice her, put her off guard then seal her away again, this time together with Kyouko and everyone else so no one can free her anymore!”

Madoka and Homura from the other world froze. They hadn’t yet seen her like this. She had been a pain in the neck for Homura in the time loop, but they considered this other Sayaka way more level-headed. Now she thoroughly ruined her ‘wiser version’ image. Kyouko frowned at her but kept silent: she thought that this time the other Madoka should take care of things.

“I-I don’t! I swear I won’t ever do such things again, Miki-san!”, Akuma Homura vowed, taken off guard by the sudden attack. Sayaka angrily bit her lower lip. That devil was playing the pigtailed-bespectacled schoolgirl again, just like in her labyrinth...

“Shut up you traitor! You’re doing it only because you know that Madoka can’t resist when you’re like this! Beware, Madoka, she’s not as innocent as she pretends!”

“Sayaka-chan!”, the Goddess furrowed her brows in anger. “Homura-chan did nothing at all! In case you haven’t noticed, it was me who called her here!”

She ostentatiously hugged the startled raven haired girl. This time something really snapped inside Sayaka.

“Because this is exactly how demons work! She slyly gets close to you and will control you before you’d realize!”

“Come here, Sayaka-chan!”, Madokami ordered strictly. Then her voice softened as she saw how much she scared Sayaka. “I think you still don’t remember everything... but I can help you. You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t hurt you, even if you keep angry with Homura-chan, but I can’t let you unfairly judge her!”

Then she placed her hand hand on Sayaka’s forehead. Memories flashed in the blunette’s head as she fell toward the floor. She couldn’t even sense when she hit the ground.

“ _Kyubey tricked us all!”_

“ _I’m sorry, Miki-san...”_

“ _I wanted to handle things before Kyubey got to Kaname Madoka, but it can’t be helped now.”_

“ _At this rate you just make Madoka suffer even more! Then I might as well kill you right now, Miki Sayaka!”_

“ _N-not me! I am... the pumpkin!”_

“ _So you’re saying that the person who wished for this situation is one of us?”_

“ _The world is in working order, the law is still in effect. All I took was a tiny piece of it. Just the records of the person that Kaname Madoka had been before she ceased to exist.”_

“Sayaka, are you okay?”

The blue haired girl felt a hand on her shoulder. She shook her head to clear up her vision. As the blur began to dissolve she saw a pair of worried violet eyes. Why did it have to be Homura? The demon cast a carefully calculated troubled look at her and addressed her in an unusually friendly manner. This time she targeted her... Then again, she might have really been trying to make peace... Sayaka had a thousand reasons to be angry with her, but she had to admit that Homura had payed dearly for her sins – even before she could commit them. Sayaka sighed and accepted her helping hand.

“All right...! But I’ll keep an eye on you, transfer student!”

She shook her head at the dark haired girl’s thankful gaze. It had been so much simpler to just place her on an imaginary shelf in an imaginary jar with a black label of ‘Evil’... or, even before that, with another label saying: ‘Nuts’. She hoped that she would eventually find the correct label for the errant creature. Perhaps a grey or smeary one, as she couldn’t find any black or white fit her...

When they took their seats again Madokami looked around with an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, I’d like to see this world all right... And where should I start if not at this very table?”

“But why are you two here to begin with?” The lamplight sharply flashed on Kyouko’s fang. “I mean we’re cheerfully having a dinner in your parents’ house instead of meeting somewhere in space, or on a mountaintop or something like that... you’re gods after all...”

“You know, Homura-chan was right in one thing.”, the middle schooler goddess answered. “I was really longing for a normal, simple life here on Earth. If I had been as conscious as I am now I’d have been very lonely. And even the way I was I missed my parents and my friends. I missed Homura-chan. Poor girl, while she was with me I couldn’t see the struggle she had been through for me. And when I finally saw everything we had to part ways... But now, we can be together again, thanks to you. If you need us you can always find us here. We’ll always be here for you and any magical girl who is, was, will be in need. We meddled with space-time a bit so this house will stay like this forever. Now that there’s two of us our job’s much easier so we can take some rest once in a while.”

“Then, I think, you don’t need...”, Kyouko began.

“No, Kyouko-chan. There won’t be any witches in this world anymore. We’ll be on guard until the Universe cools down in the end. What we don’t wait too eagerly, so you can say that the Incubators work for us in this new world.”, Madokami blushed a little. “But Homura-chan keeps them on a short leash, she won’t let anyone suffer just to postpone the heat death of our Universe! But what about your world? I don’t know too much, but I’ve heard that you all are in big trouble...”

“Madoka! The other Homura told me that she found out something very important!”, the Devil cut in, her gaze fixed on her Goddess. Then she turned to her alter ego. “This is what you wanted to talk about, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”, the older Homura replied. “It seems that someone tampered with my brain too, because I couldn’t possibly forget such an important thing by myself! It’s about that certain 96th attempt, if I didn’t mess up counting...”, she looked back at her parallel.

“It hadn’t ever been so hard before. It seriously crossed my mind to give up. I had run out of my month, I couldn’t stop time anymore and Walpurgis hit me full on with a building. I was lying in the debris, my splintered leg stuck under a huge concrete chunk. And I knew that I’d have just hurt Madoka if I had kept trying. My soul gem was pitch black. I was defeated. I closed my eyes and waited for Madoka to make her wish. I waited for a good while and nothing happened so I warily looked around, just to realize that I was in still time, even though I couldn’t stop it anymore. A bald man was crouching in front of me, one of those very Observers, and he was pricking needles in the concrete chunk on my leg.

* * *

“It can possibly distract your judgment.”, the man said in a toneless voice. Homura was watching apathetically as he placed the last needle. Then a single touch of a button on his PDA and the concrete chunk simply evaporated. The stranger straightened the girl’s leg and ran the contraption along to her feet. The pain was gone in a few seconds, but Homura didn’t care.

“I only used peripheral nerve blocking. Your leg is still broken.”

It was the same otherworldly, monotonic voice, the same empty face, like he really wasn’t human. He might have not been.

Then he checked her eyes very closely with a blinding flashlight. Indifferent grey look met a broken purple. When he made sure that the girl could understand him he finally began his speech.

“Your mission is important for our... future. We decided to let you change timelines. At this point we can not _afford_ letting you give up so I have been _authorized_ to share certain details of your _future_ with you. We have a new... assignment for you. And new _hope_.”

Floating images appeared before her eyes, recordings about four people: an old and a young man, a white and a creole woman.

“You have to contact these persons. They are capable of solving... your problem.”

The corner of Homura’s mouth curled up a little. This stone faced stranger just couldn’t understand. At least it was a bit funny. Another drop of blood trickled down her face, slightly tickling. Everything she remembered from her life was hiding behind that stoic mask, and sometimes, only sometimes, crying to Madoka. It didn’t feel too bad to die smiling after all...

“See you in my labyrinth...”, she whispered what she meant to be her last words. With the last of her strength she raised her hand showing him the pitch black magical jewel.

The hatted man took her hand and examined the stone’s swirling darkness very carefully. The girl’s lavender eyes widened as he took a grief seed out of his pocket and touched it against her soul gem without so much as a blink. He held it there until the gem shined brighter than any time Homura had cleaned it, no matter how many grief seeds she used. She saw the unmistakable gears on the little black gem’s casing. Gears that had been haunting her since the first time she woke up in the hospital room with her soul gem in her hand. Gears that kept grinding her sanity. Walpurgis.

“How...?”

“You think that you control time. You don’t even know what you don’t know. You live because you hope. But there’s no hope for us. We only have knowledge of possible futures. Knowledge expels hope. This is why you must forget what you’ve seen here. Your subconscious will store the images you need.”

* * *

“The next thing I remember is the ceiling of my hospital room, the same as always.”

“Homura-chan, this is terrible!”, the two Madokas exclaimed at once. Kyouko slammed her fist on the table. They all saw the hidden threat behind the act of generosity. It was a carefully chosen little intervention that changed the direction of an entire universe. And it was the very trap that could have driven the time traveler Homura crazy: probably they only let her save Madoka because it was a step in the course of events that led to them taking over the world.

“Twisted!”, Kyouko whistled. “Even if you could go back again to thwart their plans you’d have to throw Madoka away...! These baldies are just as nasty as the Incubators! Our world is in good hands... or... just wait a minute! Are you sure you didn’t have any business with them since then?”

“I had never seen them since then, until Hochfeld. Unless they erased that from my mind too...”, Homura didn’t look delighted by this possibility. “But Walbey said that he met them. I think we both were manipulated to create a stable universe for them to take, because our world seemed to stop decaying after you crossed over. The thought of being a chess piece in their hands when all I did was trying to save Madoka makes me sick!”

“And they still want something from us!”, Madoka added. “We saw those screens: Homura-chan and I are still wanted in our world. And they’re looking for Walbey too!”

“Who’s this Walbey?”, Akuma Homura wondered. “I thought you’re at war with the Incubators.”

Kyouko burst into laughter.

“It’s Walbey who’s at war with them the most! I don’t think he’s happy about his looks but he had to steal a host body from them... Truth is, he has to hide in that form while his human body is serving his life sentence in the Wissenschaft prison... The old man’s a genius and a good guy anyway, he’s our greatest help. Okay, he has his burdens too, just like every one of us, but it can’t be helped... He was found by Homura somehow, back when he was a human. But now we know where she got the idea from...”

“I owe Madoka’s and my life to him.”, the dark haired girl said humbly. “I hope he can help us again and the Observers won’t stop him before he could...”

“I hope so, Homura-chan! And I’d like to help you too! Could you think of this man for a moment? We might have his parallel and I want to find him!”

Madokami closed her eyes for a second.

“Oh... it’s really interesting! I understand now! He was really your best choice. He and his son are both tied to multiple worlds, just like Homura-chan or myself! No wonder that you’ve ended up here! And I had no idea that there are such people in my world! Even though we became gods we can’t just be omniscient, you know. We’d go crazy if we had to keep everything in mind. And we really don’t know much about other worlds. I can’t even explain what I see... it’s like a huge tangle of threads and force fields and junctions where worlds split. Just like the fork where Homura-chan tried to save me again and again. The timelines she created are branching from that point like stamens of a spider lily. But your world is different: it’s relocating right before my eyes without splitting and keeps changing in the future and the past too... I don’t even know why. It has no apparent reason. But even if it doesn’t, that reason will be created in the past for sure, to protect causality. I can only tell one thing: this change has something to do with Homura-chan, with both Homura-chans!”

“It must be the machine Jones put me in...”, the older dark haired girl sighed. “He... made me feel like... your Homura. Then he connected the two universes. This is how we met and this is why our worlds are neighbors now. It was a real nightmare, I even saw an Incubator with him! That little bastard was cheering for him the whole time. He wanted to study your world. They’ve practically steered ours closer...”

Akuma Homura’s eyes burned with red glow behind the gentle lavender as she clenched her fists. No matter how lost she was in her new role, threats against Madoka were no laughing matter to her.

“What the hell do I need to shake them off?! Even a whole universe isn’t enough? Goddamn alien bastards... Just try to sneak into our world and take your hands on Madoka, I’ll show you that even you can suffer...!”

The yellow eyed Madoka just shook her head.

“Let them be, Homura-chan... you know that they won’t come here. They simply can not.”

“How come...?”, the older Homura raised her brow. “Even we mere earthlings could cross over with our early 21st century technology! We wouldn’t even need magic if we did the same as Jones: he followed me from timeline to timeline and I never noticed him!”

“That’s because you’re separate individuals! But the Incubators store their memories in a big collective consciousness. It’s hard to kill one, but even if you do you’ll get nothing from that, because they’ll still remember everything it knew. But there’s a catch: if an Incubator enters a world with another similar collective network it’ll become one of them and inevitably forget why it came. And they can’t go back in time for the same reason: when they arrive they won’t remember anything they didn’t know at that time. I don’t know how they connect to the others from within a witch’s labyrinth and why they don’t send messages to their past selves, but this is why Homura-chan could protect me until I finally made my contract. If they had warned themselves about her trying they would have surely done something against her! After all, they could even turn her into a witch, right here under my nose!”

Even the Goddess herself was scared of the thought. She protectively clutched Akuma Homura by her head. Then her grasp tightened even more when the other Homura told her about the tiny little scratch that she found on her soul gem on the morning before Walpurgisnacht – even though it was nothing to the screws in the younger version’s soul...

“It was almost a success. By the time we defeated Walpurgis I must have been within an inch of Homulilly... I rather froze myself in amber together with Walpurgis and Kyubey than letting Madoka see me like that. I was so close that everything was horribly familiar in her labyrinth where we met... I had been roaming that city for two months so you can imagine that I couldn’t get away from there even after I was freed and those grinning dolls kept hunting me too. Madoka can tell you how terrible I looked every night after Walter carved me out of the amber and broke my soul gem. He saved my life but couldn’t save my dreams.”

“So you had your own Clara dolls?”, Akuma Homura wondered. “Then you were really close! Have you ever seen them outside your head? Would you like to? There’s fourteen of them and each one is as strong as a magical girl!”

The other Homura made a wry face.

“You’re right, it’s a bad idea... They rarely listen, only when they feel like it. They only fear Madoka...”, the Devil blushed, peeking through the divine arms. Madokami still didn’t let her go, even though she seemed to be somewhere else.

They all watched the Goddess for a few seconds - then Madoka returned with a blink.

“I have no power over your world, but I’ll do my best to help you.”, she said looking around at her guests. “You ought not talk about this universe in yours, for your own good. But I’d like to be there for you when you need us, because you will. This Walter Bishop has a pair of strange typewriters, designed to transmit between two worlds. It works by quantum entanglement so it can’t be monitored neither by the Incubators nor the Observers. I asked him to lend them to us while he was sleeping. He wasn’t even too hard to persuade. Take one to your world, I’ll keep the other. The postman’s going to deliver them next morning, then I’ll send you home.”

“Wow, your postal service is quick as hell!”, Kyouko noted.

“I asked him last week.”, Madoka smiled.

“You’re awesome! But won’t you be discovered this way?”

The Goddess’ smile gave way to a grin.

“They sent it to another city someone accidentally mixed up the address and no one remembers a thing. But...”, she changed to a serious tone. ”As the demanding God I am I’d like you to do something for me too. It’s just a little play. You know, we’ll always be like this, but you had... grown up. I’d like to see how we’d look like older.”

“I don’t understand...”, the other Madoka gave her a confused look.

“But it was you who just played my role... I’d like you two to swap places with us for a little. Don’t be afraid, I won’t impose the world on you, I’d just like to see you in my outfit! And the other Homura-chan too, as a Devil!”

Kyouko took a bowl of peanuts and leaned back giggling. These two didn’t fail to amuse her again.

Madoka had no objections so both pinkettes got up. She bowed a bit to let her shorter alter ego kiss her forehead. In the next moment she was standing there in her parallel’s divine white dress.

“M-Madoka... You’re stunning!”, it was everything Homura could stammer. Madoka smiled in deep blush.

“You’re next!”, Kyouko demanded looking at Homura.

“All right.”, Homura sighed. “But believe me, I’m not a great sight...”

“It’s not true, Homura-chan! You’re beautiful!”, the pink eyed Madoka joined in. “It would be fantastic to wear fitting dresses! Even you have to admit that the other Homura-chan is cute in it!”

“You’re nice, Madoka, like always... But she’s so... perfect. And I’m...”

“...perfectly skinny! You two are as like as two peas!”, Kyouko said with finality and to demonstrate her point she simply picked up the raven haired girl and carried her to her alter ego.

Akuma Homura clapped with a mischievous little smile and the change was done. The girl in her diabolic dress suddenly raised her hands to hide something between her barely covered breasts. This was the moment when Madoka realized the reason of her reluctance and the penny dropped for Kyouko too. She had already seen Homura naked on the operating table and she knew that the thin girl would walk through the Chamber of the Parliament dressed in a pair of AK-47s without as much as a blink if she needed to. Kyouko was appalled that Homura could worry about such a trivial little thing. A strange girl, indeed.

“Don’t you say that it worried you! You had been cut open, then what? They did it like a pro. Just be happy that it wasn’t me! Then you’d really have something to hide! Anyway, I’ve seen someone with a tattoo like this...”

Akuma Homura gave her parallel a surprised look.

“Why didn’t you mend that scar?”

Her older self sighed and lowered her arms.

“I didn’t feel like I had enough excess magic for that. You weren’t there in those timelines, they were getting harder and harder. I could barely survive the last battle. I tried to save every drop of my power. I’ve repaired everything inside and my eyes too because I needed them in battles, but I couldn’t care about marginal things... I thought that even if Madoka saw it she wouldn’t waste her wish on it if it isn’t dangerous or painful. So I stayed like this. But Kyouko’s right, it’s stupid to worry about it. Madoka did never mind...”

Kyouko waited for her to finish then whispered something in Akuma Homura’s ear. The Devil asked something in return just as silently then she shrugged and clapped her hands again. In the next moment the bored Sayaka toppled over backward with her chair.

“I knew it!”, she yelled.

Kyouko stood before them in a traditional red and white miko outfit, swinging a stick with a long paper ribbon.

“Just to make you happy! It’s your obsession, not mine!”

“Neo-Christian, yeah, sure...! Don't try to pull a fast one on me!”, Sayaka laughed clutching her stomach. But Kyouko poured cold water on her spirits.

“This is my farewell gift. I’m going to leave tomorrow, to the world where I belong. They need me more than you do. You’ve probably figured out already that I am someone else.”

Sayaka looked at her sullenly but finally she nodded. She knew that this redhead was just a reminder of the Kyouko of her own world. She resolved to find that other one the next day. She hoped that their Kyouko’s memories were returning too now that the world was freed from the Devil’s grasp. If not...

But there was something else Homura was curious about.

“What’s this ‘World D’ you keep mentioning? Why isn’t it ‘A’ like ‘the first world we’ve known’?”

“It’s D like Drugs. This is our technique. I’m not really sure if I should be proud of it being more advanced at biochemistry when we know a dope that can incubate witches... Their universe is just Wold M to me, because they’re much more magical.”, Kyouko grinned at the alliteration. “Then I realized that that ‘M’ could be ‘Madoka’ instead...”

Madokami led the whole group to the backyard where Tomohisa usually raised tomatoes.

“Wow, Madoka! I’ve never seen it! I didn’t know that you have something like this in your garden!”, Kyouko yelled, surprised by the Shinto shrine gate.

“We can have anything you want in this garden as long as Papa gets his tomatoes back in the end. He’s just planted them!”, Madokami giggled. “All I want you to do is to stand here, under the gate. I’d just like to take a picture of you three. It’s not everyday that you get visited by your alter ego from another world!”

“Just watch!”, Kyouko grinned and dragged her world-mates under the gate.

“Almighty Madoka-sama of the heavens, Good-for-nothing Homura-sama who rulest over white rats, may ye bless this house and its holy gate. Bestow good luck upon all who treadeth this sacred ground, amen!”

“I’ll kick your ankle...”, Homura hissed.

“Why do you think that no one else should read stupid messages in bus stops? It’s you who shouldn’t read them to begin with, you like to brood over such things too much... Wait, I see why you have these dark thoughts! You’re possessed by a demon! Just let me purge you! Begone, evil spirit!”

And she brandished her stick and swung Homura with the paper ribbon. In her left hand she was already holding a paper talisman against the demon.

The move the raven haired girl dodged the talisman with was way quicker than it should have been. Kyouko tried to follow but she could only see blur and feel her own talisman slapping her forehead and sticking there. She growled about Cortexiphan, magic and sense of humor while she scraped the piece of paper off herself. Homura panted, hiding behind Madoka.

“Not bad at all!”, Sayaka laughed. “Only that ‘Amen’ wasn’t right on... And you should practice exorcism a bit more because devils can be quite nimble!”

Kyouko bowed.

“I’ve already said that my Christian background puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to the rituals of the Church of Madokami! But it seems that even makeshift priestesses like me can do for this embryonic religion... Just watch how our Goddess tries to catch new followers with her own hands! ...Oi, Homura, are you okay?!”

Only Madoka stopped the dark haired girl from collapsing. They quickly carried her up into the guest room and assured Madokami’s parents that they didn’t need a doctor and even if they had, no normal physician could have helped this Homura.

The house goddesses examined her instead and they marveled at her state.

“Madoka, I almost envy you! Homura-chan’s soul is partly outside her body and it’s a bit inside you! How did you do this? What happened to you?”

“It must be her magnets. You know, we said earlier... Jones injected some of them into me to torture her more efficiently and to make her more similar to real magical girls. I was afraid that he tried to turn her into a witch but fortunately he was content with _almost_ doing so...! We escaped in the end but Homura-chan stayed this way. Now her soul is attracted by my body too. We’re really close this way but we were already close enough and I’m worried about Homura-chan... It’s very dangerous for her. If there aren’t enough magnets in her bloodstream her soul may slip away...!

“See? Our method isn’t perfect...”, Homura faintly smiled. She had to gather her strength for every few words. “This is the best we can... But I’ll be fine, just let me rest a little... I used magic, that’s why I’m... exhausted. When we get home I’ll get... new magnets... in the university lab.”

“No way, Homura-chan!”, Madokami objected. “I know you too well... you should take better care of yourself! I won’t let you leave like this!”

“Let me do it, Madoka!”, Akuma Homura offered. “It’ll be better this way. Do you remember the pain you felt when you contracted with the Incubators? It’ll be just as painful for them! I don’t want you to hurt them, it’s the Devil’s job! But I think I’d better anesthetize them for the operation like humans do...”

Madoka would have liked to talk with them some more, but Akuma Homura clapped and she suddenly felt weary and drowsy. She collapsed on the futon next to her Homura and the world faded to black before her eyes.

* * *

Silence fell over the house, every light went out. Everyone was sleeping, only Akuma Homura was still lying awake. Her head was full of thoughts after everything that happened. She got up and left the dreaming Madokami while she sneaked around in the house full of sleepers, immersed in her thoughts. She had been alone for so long that the world got re-created twice in the meantime - then, suddenly, everything changed and she lost her footing. Dreamlike things happened to her, things she couldn’t even hope for since her early days as a pigtailed, bespectacled naive little girl who tried to protect Madoka from the unknown with a mere golf club. After these years of isolation she found herself sitting in the Kaname household, literally dragged home by Madoka. Just a day earlier she had been the almighty Devil, pulling strings from the world’s engineering deck. Now she was Madoka’s strange and clumsy protege, surrounded by a bunch of oddly friendly people. She found this crowd distressingly hard to handle.

“Why, a black cat wandering in the night... Come, sit here, Homura. Don’t be afraid, I won’t bite...”

So there was someone else awake. Madoka’s mother was sitting in the murky kitchen. She was the most confusing of the whole family, and the girl had just run into her arms... Homura felt like running away and erasing their meeting from Junko’s mind. In the next moment she was ashamed of her own thought. She had just been thinking of betraying Madoka’s trust... Dozens of well deserved tomatoes would have splashed on her hair and clothes if she hadn’t been in Madoka’s house. But even her unruly familiars behaved themselves here.

Something touched her hand. Homura just realized that she was holding on the edge of the table with whitened knuckles and the touch came from Junko’s hand that she placed on hers. The girl sighed at the gesture. She couldn’t do anything about the ruins of her once perfect mask that leaked like a sieve.

“I’m glad that you popped up here. I’d like to have a little talk with you. I know that I’m just a funny stranger to you and I don’t know you either. But I know Madoka and she doesn’t lie to me. I accept that you’ve long known each other, since a time I can’t even remember. In a sense it wasn’t even real, was it?”

“I... I don’t know...”, the girl began, her timid gaze wandering around. “It might sound unreal to Kaname-san... But everything she said had really happened to Madoka and me.”

“You can call me Junko. I know that a few hours have passed again, but I’m still not that old!”

“Junko-san...”

Homura fell silent. They lived in totally different worlds. She couldn’t think of anything she could have told to Madoka’s mother.

“Here, let me help you. I know much more than you think. Madoka told me so much about you that I can’t even imagine how she could do it in the short time you spent here. You know that you’ve done something horrible, don’t you?”

The question wasn’t necessary and it needed no answer: Homura’s eyes spoke in her stead. Now Junko really had to hold her to stop her from running away. The only difference between the girl’s gaze and that of a scared beast was a whole mountain of guilt. Junko felt bad for mentioning but perhaps she was doing the very thing she wanted to talk about.

“And I can’t forgive you. First of all, I’ve never had a grudge against you. What’s more important, only you can forgive yourself.”

As she spoke Junko had a great chance to study the shifting shades of purple in the girl’s eyes as widened in fear, dropped in submission, then fixed at her again full of confusion and a little faint hope.

“Madoka is my daughter and I won’t let any harm come to her. Still... you may not believe, but I kind of understand you. You know, once I had a talk with Madoka, right here. It might haven’t even been so long ago... She asked me how to help a friend. This friend of hers just wanted to do what she felt right. She might haven’t even been wrong, but life isn’t so simple. Sometimes you can only hurt yourself if you do the right thing. I told Madoka that sometimes you need to make a mistake to get things right. I advised her to tell a lie to this friend or run away. To do something wrong. Sometimes the only exit from a dead end is a big mistake. I feel like you were here with us too, because I could have never found a better example.”

Homura remembered a blue soul gem falling from a bridge, Madoka crying over Sayaka’s dead body, scared of her own deed. Homura didn’t understand how Junko could remember that time but she was sure that the woman knew what she was talking about. Homura had been there too, it was her who got Sayaka’s soul back from the back of a truck. It must have been some divine intervention, the gem would have probably shattered if it had fallen on the pavement. What Madoka had done was terribly stupid - yet it helped Sayaka and Kyouko to make peace.

“Junko-san... why don’t you hate the Devil for what she did?”

“Cut it out, Homura, this is stupid! You’re no more ‘devil’ than Tomohisa or myself.”

“B-but I sealed Madoka here on Earth! I wanted her to be together with me forever in blissful ignorance! I took her memories, her divine power she could have been so proud of...”

The girl blinked fighting back her tears then she gave up and wiped her eyes. She couldn’t tell how Madoka’s pride felt – but hers was surely in ruins.

“You are frighteningly powerful, Homura. When I talk with you I always have to push away the thought that I’m playing with fire. But!”, Junko held up her index finger. “Have you ever tried to give this power to someone just to see what they'd do with it? Believe me, you used it way better than most people would! I’m not even sure that my world would be better than this one. And you could even realize your mistake with a little help and try to make things right. What would you call such a ‘Devil’? And you did something more. You say you wanted to keep Madoka for yourself, but if you two told me the truth it was exactly you who gave her back to me.”

The undeserved kindness made tears trickle down the girl’s face. Junko watched her carefully and failed to see the monster that Homura saw in herself. In the woman’s eyes she was no more than a troubled, weary teenage girl who made stupid mistakes like anyone else in her age, but even her parents weren’t there to support her. Junko got up from the table, stepped behind Homura’s chair and took the girl in her arms.

“You don’t have to carry everything alone... you should trust Madoka! I’m sure she has learned from her mistake. And we are here for you too, just like for her.”

Junko held the crying girl until she felt the sobs ease behind the black curtain of hair that hid Homura’s face, then she helped her to her feet.

“Come, Homura, it’s time to sleep. I hand you back to Madoka...”

And she steered her to the door where the golden-eyed Goddess had already been waiting her with open arms.


	13. Sky Ruin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back then the original Hungarian version of this almost became the Christmas Chapter of GOSE. This would have been twisted just as much the English version posted on Mothers' day. I refrained both times. But today isn't special at all, I guess.
> 
> Postal stickers: Wehihi, 277 Hz, He Probably Wanted To Be A Paleontologist, Not Yet, Cotton Candy With No Sticks, It's Always Raining At Funerals, Two Things Mean Real Big Trouble: When Kyouko Is Serious...

# Sky Ruin

_v0.902_

Madoka stretched yawning in the guest room of the other Kaname house. The sun shone through the window but Sayaka was still sleeping soundly and Kyouko was lying halfway up the wall next to her futon less soundly. Only Homura could not be found.

She stepped out and gently closed the door not to disturb her friends’ dreams. They didn’t have too much to do this morning and they couldn’t leave anyway until Madokami would send them on their way, so she decided to take the time to solve the mystery of the missing Homura.

She didn’t have to look for her too long, she just had to follow the voices from the kitchen. She felt like lurking this morning so she peeked in the kitchen instead of stepping in. She didn’t want to disturb them – because both Homuras were inside.

The two girls were busy at the kitchen counter, both wearing aprons and having their hair put up. They were apparently making bentos for everyone - including Kyouko, Madoka guessed from the amount. And her Homura (with Tomohisa’s help) seemed teaching the other.

Madokami’s father was just showing the way to carve beautiful and tasty bits of the food to the new member of the family.

“I know you’ll do it fine!”, he smiled at the self-proclaimed devil. “Just look how skillful the other Homura-chan is!”

Akuma Homura worked with the knife with great dedication then she showed the finished bits to the others before she put them into the open box, next to the rest. Of course it would have been much easier to do it with magic in a blink of an eye but she suspected that she’d have left out some important ingredient that way. Tomohisa nodded and congratulated her for her first partially own bento.

As Madoka watched them she felt watched too. As she turned her head her eyes met Madokami’s golden gaze. The Goddess smiled as she put her finger across her lips.

Now the two of them watched secretly as the girls in the kitchen switched to making the breakfast and they brewed a massive amount of Madoka’s favorite hot cocoa. Of course anyone can make cocoa – but Akuma Homura was making Madoka’s favorite morning drink and she did her best to memorize the little tricks that made Tomohisa’s special cocoa.

“Wait, we’ll help you with the serving!”, Madokami said and grabbed a plate with a pile of food. Both Homuras looked up and waved smiling to the arriving Madokas.

The pink eyed Madoka didn’t even notice when the others sneaked out of the kitchen. She just saw Tomohisa whispering something in Akuma Homura’s ear then he disappeared leaving the two of them alone. The three had apparently been arranged something in her absence. Madoka was curious, but when she saw the deeply blushed fidget nervously girl she felt bad for her.

“Don’t be afraid, Homura-chan! I won’t bite!”

She placed her hand on the Devil’s shoulder and looked at her, waiting.

“Madoka... I’m so sorry... It wasn’t nice to toy with you last evening...”, she paused to study the pattern of the floor before her feet. “I... think I’ve gone too far...”

Now that they were over and done with it both girls felt relieved. The pink eyes smiled at Akuma Homura.

“I’m not angry at you at all. Didn’t I play with you first, anyway? I infiltrated your class while Homura-chan and Kyouko-chan hijacked the real Madoka...”

She giggled at how she implied that she wasn’t ‘real’ - but in this world she could indeed only be a copy, ‘another’ Madoka.

In the next room the older Homura cheered for her other self. She knew that it was hard for her, but it would have been worse to leave her with even more guilt, the poor Devil had already more than enough of it. Tomohisa woke her from her thoughts.

“Oops! I forgot the spoons! Other Homura-chan, could you bring one for everyone?”

The dark haired girl jumped and hurried for the kitchen. Then she slowed her pace when she realized why they had left the two alone. She didn’t want to disturb them – but it seemed that they were already out of the woods. She stepped to the familiar cupboard in a relief and opened it to get the cutlery.

“Tschüss...”, she mumbled awkwardly.

The blonde doll cast a beaming smile at her from under her flowery hat and held out a bouquet of spoons. Homura took them like they were eggshells filled with nitroglycerin.

“Danke...”, she said to the doll and closed the cupboard, gingerly.

She gave a relieved sigh when she reached the dining room in one piece.

The rest of the morning was just like any other, back in another world. Tomohisa asked the two girls from his world to help Takkun to wake up Junko and the still sleeping guests.

“You heard it, Homura-chan! Just go with Madoka! If you’d like to belong to the Kaname family you’ll have to take part in it too!”

Akuma Homura hurried to catch up to Madokami, her hair fluttering as she ran.

“Is this what they really want?”, Tomohisa wondered as he left with his guests. “Should we really pretend they’re normal students? Should we set them on their way to school every morning, should we listen their teachers and nod at whatever they say knowing that our girls are merely doing it for fun? And what if they graduate from school?”

“I think I understand them.”, the ‘other’ Madoka answered. “I think they’ll start it over and over until they have a better idea. Yesterday they told to us that they would never grow up. I think they’ll always need you and always be happy that you’re there for them. I don’t know how Madoka’s half-existence out there could feel, but I’m sure that no one can appreciate having such a loving family better than her.”

“We’ll do our best!”, he promised. “Still, having stuck with them... I’m happy to see that they... I mean you two, are still together after so many years. Not that I don’t believe that Madoka is serious... Yet she confused me a little. Just a bit earlier she had been a small child and now she’s making such important decisions all alone... Of course we didn’t have a clue about her other life...”

The bell rang. The old, familiar postman was standing in the door and welcomed Tomohisa back in Japan. Then he spotted the twenty-year-old Madoka.

“Look, what a grown-up this girl has become! You can only blame America, Tomohisa-kun!”

But he got much more surprised when Madokami popped up to take the package he brought to her. The postman shook his head in disbelief.

“I didn’t even remember that you had twins! But shouldn’t they be the same age then...?”

“She’s my sister’s daughter. She’s here to help with unpacking. It’s a wonder how they look the same, isn’t it, Hideki-san?”

The older Homura hurried to vanish before the postman could spot that there was two of her too. So she could only hear when he found her parallel.

“And who this lovely young lady might be? Is she your sister’s child too?”

“Not at all!”, Madokami said. “Homura-chan is a transfer student just like me, we arrived almost at once and made friends. She had been in hospital with a heart condition for a long time and her parents don’t really care about her so we thought it would be better for her to be here. She’s been with us for two days and they haven’t even tried to look for her! But we asked her to take care of Takkun whenever papa works on his book about city gardening.”

“And they dare to call themselves parents...!”, the old postman grumbled. “Youngsters these days...!”

Tomohisa couldn’t do better but share a look with Akuma Homura.

“Do I work on a book?”, he raised his brow. The rest was more or less the same as she had told to them when she took the other girl home. The only thing she changed was the order of the sentences and it was enough to give a completely different ring to the story.

“You do. Better not to mess with Madoka!”, the Devil whispered with a grin.

“Let’s see the delivery!”, the postman browsed through the list of the larger packages then dragged a box out of the back of his van. “This is it! Madoka-chan, please tell your American friends to be more careful of the addressing next time! It’s a miracle that it’s arrived at all! And it’s heavy! What’s inside?”

“Typewriter.”, Madokami answered. Hideki made a surprised face.

“Strange friends you have in Boston! Don’t they know that we have these things too? You could have bought much better and newer and lighter here...”

“But it’s a special, antique piece! It’ll be a present.”

“To your father for his book?”, the postman asked then he fell silent, embarrassed. He might just have spoiled a surprise...

But Madokami just smiled while she forged a fingerprint on the sensor of Hideki’s tablet.

“I don’t understand, it says that something’s wrong... but we all know that you are you, don’t us? I have to hurry now! Take care, girls! I wish you success with your book, Tomohisa-kun!”

At last Junko arrived too and sat down at the table, neatly dressed and ready for the day. Sayaka and Kyouko appeared too - no one was missing. Despite the strange gathering it was a normal pleasant and nostalgic spring morning with a perfect breakfast. None of them had to worry about anything in this world.

After eating Madokami waved to her guests to follow her to the spacious bathroom. They opened the delivery: beside the typewriters they found a sheet of paper, syringes, ampules filled with ruby liquid and some dubious sticky blue wad in a little box.

“Cotton candy!”, said Kyouko when she tasted the suspicious tissue after some sniffing. She held out the box to Sayaka who tore a large tuft of the sweets.

“He says it’s for you...”, Madokami said running her eyes over the letter. “In case there’s no such thing in your world. He knows a universe where coffee is regrettably unobtainable and he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he bereaved you from the experience of blue cotton candy.”

“Hmm... this is interesting. ‘Have you thought about the Observers’ origin? You say that they’re humans too, or post-human beings to be more exact. Something tells me that this is the result of someone in your future trying to copy the abilities of your miraculous ‘Incubators’. Believe me, it isn’t right for a human to play God!’”

The older Homura shook her head, full of concern.

“Yes, this is almost what I concluded... I didn’t want to tell it to anyone while I’m not sure, especially not in our world. I don’t want them to learn that we know something... We have too many enemies. I wouldn’t like neither the Incubators nor the Observers listen... My theory is, we humans tried to starve the Incubators. If we don’t have emotions there’s no energy for them to collect. On the top of that, the Observers are all men. Could they hinder the Incubators’ magical girl making plan any better...?”

“I’d gladly say that it’s your usual pessimism, Homura...”, Kyouko answered. “But it makes too much sense.”

“Then I realized what I told you about the Observer who saved me and now I’m sure that they ensured their future through me. I have no idea how I’ll sleep from now on... you two helped me last night but what can I do today?”

“Oh... so you’re having nightmares too?”, the Goddess asked with a sad face. “My poor Homura-chan can only sleep if I’m there too. Madoka, I hope you take good care of her...”

The older Madoka put an arm around her Homura’s waist. The other girl leaned her head on her shoulder and they watched Madokami this way, waiting for her to read the rest of the letter.

“He asks you to measure the frequency of your world and tell it to him... through me, of course. Ours resonates at 277 Hz, the frequency of middle C-sharp... Then, let’s see... ‘ _I haven’t told Peter that I send this package to you. He already regards me as an eccentric old man, I wouldn’t like to unnecessarily explain myself to him... I believe that someone, somewhere greatly needs these things. Please accept them as an offer of peace on behalf of my universe! I don’t want any more wars with our neighbors. I wish your friends luck, hug them in my stead!_ ’ Well, if he insists...”

Madokami smiled and gathered the couple from the other world in her arms. Kyouko was the next. Then Sayaka patted the guests’ shoulders, she even hugged Kyouko. The redhead needed all her discipline to command herself.

Someone knocked on the bathroom’s door. The yellow-eyed Goddess let her family in. Everyone was here, even though they didn’t really get why their guests had to leave through the bathroom. They received one more hug from Junko then Tomohisa picked up Takkun to let him ruffle the girls’ hair.

“Goodbye Big Maroka, Other Devil, Kitsune-onee-chan! Be smart!”

Homura lifted the little boy over her head, spun around then handed him to Kyouko knowing that she likes to play with the child too. The redhead raced around the spacious bathroom with him then gave him to the smiling Madoka who mused when she saw her younger brother so little. When Takkun got back to his father the parents waved goodbye to the girls and left the bathroom.

“Well... good luck. We’ll root for you all.”, Akuma Homura said then darkened the windows with a clap of her hands.

This time they were cautious. Madoka asked for a swimsuit and packed her own outfit in a backpack, together with a bento and the half of Walter Bishop’s present. Then she took the backpack, wrapped it in a waterproof bag which she took with her into the bathtub full of lukewarm water. Then, while Sayaka shook her head in disapproval, she dosed herself with Cortexiphan, covered her eyes, plugged in her ears and laid back in the water holding on to Homura and Kyouko.

A pink cloud began to unfurl underwater. Madoka lying in the pink water was a morbid sight, just like she had slit her wrists. But this liquid wasn’t her blood, there was much more of it. The bathtub overflowed soon and the pink tide flooded the whole bathroom. Homura and Kyouko kept sitting still on the brim, composed, without disturbing Madoka with the slightest move. The flood rose, it reached their necks but their clothes were still dry. Then the liquid overran them and they couldn’t see the three girls from _World M_ anymore. They couldn’t breathe, the liquid filled their lungs and the world went black.

Only the Goddess, the Devil and their Angel left in the bathroom. They could breathe freely – yet they looked sick.

“Shouldn’t we have said them something?”, Akuma Homura asked hoarsely. “It’s terrible to just throw them back to that world...”

Madokami shook her head with wet eyes.

“Not yet. You know that they’ll look for us when the time arrives. We should prepare to be there when they need us.”

Sayaka clenched her teeth and fist, feeling like punching the wall.

“God damn these rotten laws! Why can’t you two do something about them?! If the God can’t break them at least the Devil should! Do you hear me, transfer student?!”, she shouted.

The self-proclaimed demon looked away speechlessly.

“I don’t even know anymore what I could believe in...!”, Sayaka added quietly, letting her fist fall in her lap.

“Believe in hope.”, the golden eyed Goddess answered with a sad smile.

* * *

They arrived with a loud splash. Their lungs struggled for breath but they’d spit every molecule back if they didn’t need oxygen so desperately. The revolting stench turned their stomachs and reminded them of Mecca. The first sound they heard in their own world was the deep buzz of big fat blowflies. Madoka reached for the scarf before her eyes with shaking hands.

“Madoka... you should stay like this...”, she heard Kyouko’s shaking voice. Not far from her, Homura panted for air and retched. Madoka yanked the scarf off her eyes with ice cold fingers.

Cool breeze blew her face through the missing windows of the once all glass bathroom - but even the wind couldn’t drive away the stink of decay. Then her gaze fixed at the floor. Her eyes widened but her vision faded to black, her head groggily tumbled over the edge of the bathtub. The breakfast Tomohisa and the two Homuras had made with so much care now landed on the floor.

She had no doubt about the identity of the three decaying corpses. Everything matched, their height, build, clothes, the way they had worn their hair. She could see her father’s glasses and Takkun’s favorite dinosaur. She was even sure that they would try to protect her little brother in this very position.

Kyouko examined the bodies. She found Tomohisa’s and Junko’s rings and she concluded that they had passed away about ten days earlier. Cause of death: a tiny little hole in the middle of each one’s forehead.

“It’s even raining...”, she mumbled hoarsely. Perfect mood for a funeral, like it was arranged specifically for them.

She helped the two girls downstairs. They just kept staring ahead and could only walk because they held on to each other, so Kyouko put herself in charge. She looked around for Tomohisa’s gardening tools and took a spade. She stabbed it in the muddy ground, trampled on it snarling and tossed large chunks of soil and grass aside like she was trying to hit the Observers with them, again and again. Then she took a break - she stood there, holding her head bowed, knee-deep in a pit about two by two meters. Her hair stuck in a tousled wet mop, muddy and salty drops trickled down her face.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. Homura stood before her, together with Madoka who had already changed her clothes. They recovered enough to bring more spades and help her finish the grave. By the end they were soaked and muddy from top to toe – so much for Madoka’s forethought.

Then they wrapped blankets around the bodies, carried them out of the house and one by one they lowered them into the pit. Kyouko did her best to stage a complete memorial service. The new orphans just stood there mutely leaning on each other while she prayed, then the three girls buried the grave together. Madoka picked some flowers in the garden and placed them on the fresh mound.

When they finished Kyouko asked for the transmitter and called in. Oriko had already been waiting on the other side, prepared to lead them to the University through astonishingly roundabout ways. The three followed her instructions without question.

Kyouko adapted to the new world and this complicated way of navigation amazingly quickly. The veteran who had been a street urchin described her surroundings in simple sentences to supply Oriko with up-to-date information while she almost carried her friends on her back. She was firm and collected on the surface but the other two knew that she was boiling with anger and bitterness inside. If someone had stood in their way Kyouko would have broken their neck like a twig.

Mitakihara was much more alive than Kazamino had been. Much more alive, but just as bizarre. The streets were full of people again, but they were constantly force-fed with Observer propaganda through the huge screens. Life went on, but no one was free anymore. The ordinary people were led by a group of bald men, the returnees by a platinum blonde girl. The only thing that mattered was the leaders’ ability to see the future.

They roamed the streets for more than three hours before Kyouko could bang on an out-of-the-way door of the University. Mami opened it from the inside. She was horrified of the sight of the two girls’ blank stare. She held them close until they finally burst into violent sobs that they had been fighting back.

“Forgive me, my friends...”, Kyouko murmured while she administered huge doses of tranquilizer to the crying girls. Then she helped Mami and Nyameka to carry their limp bodies to a room that had already been set up for them.

“At least you can sleep tonight...”, she said hoarsely to the unconscious Homura when she left. She was tempted to stay with them but she had to go. She had a lot to do before she could allow herself some sleep – maybe a day or two later.


	14. Staking Your Life On a Prank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part where Mikuni Oriko appears in person.
> 
> Little dog tags: Funeral Dress, Timeline Diagrams, Free Will, Hexenkommando, Wehihi, Probably Isn't the Fanservice You Wished For, Rammstein: Haifisch
> 
> The young repel the old generation's music with something more edgy.
> 
> And despite its tagging, Mawaru Penguindrum OST 7/8, 7/11 are even better background music for this one. At least I listened them a lot during translation. But now you can see the Shark swimming into the story. And this was the point where I really felt like I was writing a 'proper' Madoka Magica story...
> 
> And this is also the part where I realized that everything from now on is kind of black humor about so many things in Madoka Magica.
> 
> More inspiration: The 'Observer Peter' episodes of Fringe, especially the end of S5E7. When you see Oriko scribbling in her spiral-bound notebook just think of Peter drawing Windmark's futures on the glass board. Thankfully Oriko won't lose her hair in the process, she'd look terrible...

# Staking Your Life On a Prank

_v0.904_

An unfamiliar wall with white tiles. An unfamiliar ceiling with cracks. Homura blinked in a hope that the picture would change but the sinister whiteness remained. She looked down but her hands were empty. She gave a relieved sigh at the absence of her soul gem. She sat up and almost smiled at the sleeping Madoka in the next bed - then the cold reality hit her full on and her relief turned into bitterness.

This place was the University of Mitakihara and yesterday was the day when... No, she couldn’t bring herself to think about it.

Madoka stirred and slowly sat up too. Homura gave her a comforting hug. Perhaps it was her who needed comforting. They both wanted to tell the other that everything would be all right but they couldn’t really believe. They still had to get up and take the first step toward an unknown tomorrow.

Their camouflage uniforms were gone. Perhaps they were taken to the laundry, just like at a civilized place. They saw a lot of other clothes though, procured from unknown sources. The two girls dug up the pile separately for outfits they had never worn, garments that would fit this day. They got dressed and looked at each other. Homura gave a bleak smile at the sight. They wore almost the same clothes, perfect for two places: the streets of Mitakihara – and a funeral. She didn’t even know how close she matched her parallel’s half-witch self from the past of the other universe.

* * *

Distant music echoed on the corridors of the deserted university. If they hadn’t known the place that they were looking for they could have still easily found it. As they entered the lab the heavy distorted guitar and raspy German bass almost bashed them on the head. They found Walbey fretfully walking up and down on the backs and armrests of the furniture.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her!”, he complained telepathically. At least he didn’t have to yell louder than the music. “She just rushed in last afternoon, stopped my favorite Doors record, slid before that keyboard with a bowl of popcorn and she’s been listening to this cacophony since then...”

“Walbey, this isn’t just _cacophony_...”, Homura shook her head. “If you listened carefully you’d understand too.”

The little creature stopped before her and tried to give her a sharp stare. The lyrics might have not been too complicated but even the witches’ German messages were interpreted for him by his own team, or the girls when they were available. Those very messages were the reason for them to learn some German.

“In a nutshell,” the dark haired girl translated, “it’s about the strong and tough sharks. No matter how much they hold together it’s still lonely in the dark depths so they shed invisible tears. This is why the sea is salty. Lovely myth. Just ask Mami, she’ll understand. I remember the feeling too. Walbey, this is what we used to be: magical girls hunting alone in the deep. Now it’s Kyouko who’s the most like sharks among us. She’s a real predator, quick and strong. A streamlined body, a nimble mind. Just look at her, she sits there like she’s hooked those pointy fangs of hers into something. I think we’ve found her a new nickname. But even though she hunts in packs, Rosso Fantasma can’t ease her loneliness. We may never see her tears but she’s not okay, and I think I even know what’s wrong with her...”

The music suddenly stopped and Kyouko glared them with a face as red as her hair.

“It was enough thank you...”, she grumbled.

Madoka’s gaze darted back and forth between the two.

“You’re right, Homura-chan! I haven’t seen Kyouko-chan cry since...” She stopped. Exactly since Sayaka died. “This is so sad... Kyouko-chan, you don’t have to carry everything alone! We’re here for you. You’ll feel better if you share your feelings with us!”

“I know, Madoka...”, the redhead answered with a strained smile. “But I’d rather leave crying to you two. It fits the little cuties like you but believe me that it wouldn’t suit me... Anyway, you should come down a peg, Homura, you’re in the lyrics too! If it wasn’t for your flaming heart you’d have long kicked the bucket!”

“She’s right... even your name means flame, Homura-chan!”

At long last, Madoka flashed a bleak smile. Homura was thankful to Kyouko for diverting Madoka’s thoughts off her parents for a moment.

“Now listen!”, the Shark clapped her jaws. “I think I figured out how to kick their asses! Even if we can’t drive them away we’ll show them that even they can’t do as they please!”

So she was trying to keep their thoughts busy, Homura acknowledged. Madoka gave Kyouko a worried look. She didn’t even think about a revenge. It would only mean a momentary deception for her and even less for the Observers. Didn’t Kyouko know it?

She turned to Homura. The other girl shook her head with a sad look. She knew exactly how pointless it was to take a revenge on a perfectly indifferent enemy.

“What’s wrong with you two?!”, Kyouko snarled. “I can’t remember my cool, brave little sisters reaching nirvana!”

It might have merely been a friendly gesture, but Kyouko was right. Thanks to the Observers they had joined her wide, welcoming family without parents. Homura slammed her fist down on the table.

“Because we haven’t reached it! You have no idea how much I’d like to blow over their goddamn system that gives them the right to do such things! I just can’t get a grip on them. Kyouko, it’s exactly like an Incubator regime would be! They don’t care about anything but their plans and power! What the hell can we achieve by taking down one or two? No one would miss them, they’d simply replace them like broken parts. We wouldn’t change a thing!”

She looked at Madoka again who held close her hand that she slammed on the table. She had to wipe her eyes with the other, shaking with helpless anger.

Kyouko shook her head.

“Let me tell you something else! What a mock of a resistance are we? We’re just sitting in our hideout and couldn’t achieve anything but staying alive! What’s the point of a life like this? Listen carefully because I stayed up last night and I swear I cooked up what to do!”

She grabbed the two girls’ hands and dragged them to her computer. Walbey curiously followed them hopping from desk to desk. He hoped to find out what his former assistant was doing all night, keeping the details to herself.

“Take a good look at it!”, she pointed at the display. “You know what’s this? This is our weapon that’ll catch them by surprise!”

The two girls could only see a pile of meaningless characters. Probably it was the content of the mysterious hard drives they saved from Hochfeld, but its purpose hasn’t become clearer at all. They waited for the explanation of its miraculousness.

Kyouko laughed wildly at the sight of their perplexed red eyes.

“Now you might think that I know what this gibberish mean! Homura, you’ve just praised my sharp mind but I’ll have to disappoint you: I have no idea! I merely know that this is Meuko herself! Our first non-human member, if you like. This is why I wanted Peter to look into this code. Or at least some expert from Massive Dynamic. But those days are over, we’re left to our own devices!”

“But we can still use a black box without knowing what’s inside. It can be sufficient to know the most probable outcome under the given circumstances.”, Walbey remarked.

“I’ve been doing it for half of my life!”, Kyouko grinned mirthlessly. Her dark-rimmed eyes and this misshapen, fanged grin uncomfortably reminded the others of the skull of a werewolf. She looked insane but strangely, there was method in her madness.

“Walbey can tell you that I learn anything I can make use of. And I never, ever cared about the beauty of theories. Everything I know I know because it makes me a better predator. So I will use this goddamn new black box too! From today on she’ll be our hand and eye behind the enemy’s back. Homura, you said that you’d happily blow over the Observers’ system - and while we can’t probably take it down, we can grow a tumor in it. Madoka! I know you, you’d like to help everyone... Today we can give hope to the entire human race! We can deal with the Observers like we dealt with the Incubators!”

Homura was too wary to rush headfirst into her madness.

“So you say that you upload it to the Observers’ systems and their 600-years-newer hardware will simply run the code that we stole somewhere in Africa, from an unknown computer? Even though I don’t know much about these things it sounds steep to me!”

“You’re a clever loli, lil’ sis!”, Kyouko was so preoccupied with her plan that it was her first remark on their outfits. “I’ve been dwelling on it too. We are in the real world, not in a stupid Hollywood movie where you can just ruin the evil aliens’ network by a home-made virus, delivered on a common Macbook... It just wouldn’t work, but it doesn’t even have to. We have the edge over those imaginary guys, mostly because our world is occupied!”

Living under occupation as an advantage...? The two girls began to seriously worry about Kyouko’s sanity.

“Don’t give me that look! I’ll tell you too, Mami and Oriko do already understand!”

Kyouko nodded at the door where the two blondes, gold and platinum, had just entered. Mami was wearing light summer clothes while Oriko sported her long white silk magical girl dress and her signature hat that had always reminded Madoka of a bucket. She was the only one among the veterans who kept her soul gem to stay in complete control of her supernatural abilities. The gem in her neck glowed in bluish light right next to a morbid black pendant that she was never seen without. It was her former best friend’s grief seed whom she had to kill by her own hands not much after Walpurgisnacht. Oriko had been constantly monitored by a whole team of psychiatrists in 8-hour turns. To her relief they had apparently forgotten about her in this new world.

The only reason Mami didn’t clap her hands when she saw the two girls in funeral dresses was the tea pot she was holding. Oriko brought cups for everyone, even for Walbey. She placed them on the girls’ table and Mami filled them spreading the fumes of a special blend in the laboratory. When she finished with Homura’s cup she took a break to do something to her hairband. The thin girl glanced around but only Madoka was surprised, the others looked pleased with the result. Then Mami stepped to Madoka and tied a pink bow around her neck. They just noticed the two yellow ribbons lolling out of the sleeves of the blonde’s shirt. Kyouko drew out her new necklace from her t-shirt and showed them the twin pendants: a horse and a burning candle.

Homura suspected by now what the thing on her head was but Mami held out a mirror to let her see for herself. She found a beautiful lifelike plastic flower in her hair: a spider lily. She picked up her cup and took a sip of tea. She went through the symbols, one by one. The lily was easy to explain as Kyouko had seen Homulilly with her own eyes. But Candeloro, Ophelia or Kriemhild Gretchen... she had hardly mentioned them to anyone.

“How did you know these specific things?”, she asked Kyouko who seemed to be the troublemaker of the team.

“From now on we are the Hexenkommando and it’ll be our first mission!”, the redhead answered. “It’s only natural that I looked up a few symbols for the team! Everyone has her unique token. This way we don’t have a uniform that would make us easier to catch yet we have a little something to connect us. I’ve heard that they often call us witches lately. So be it!”

“You haven’t answered my question.”, Homura pointed out.

“You yourself will suggest them, in about four minutes.”, Oriko cut in. It was a real but somewhat unsettling answer.

“Mikuni Oriko,”, Homura began fretfully. “Why do I feel like you’re making fun of my free will? What if I don’t say a thing?”

“That won’t change anything.”, the platinum blonde answered. “Every given point of time has a set of possible futures and you’ll definitely tell us in one of them. If you decide to glare the bottom of your cup sulking and keep it for yourself then you’ll simply choose a timeline where it won’t happen. But that won’t change the fact that it’s possible for you to tell us.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“Then even I wouldn’t know the answer. But the answer is here, on this line!”, she held up the spiral-bound notebook she had brought the cups on.

They all examined the page carefully. The sight of the elaborate mesh of colorful lines made their heads spin. Could it be how Madokami saw the tangle of worlds? Did the Observers see the same when they tilted their heads so peculiarly?

“Don’t forget what you see now! It’s better to know your enemy. When I first tried to predict their actions they surprised me. I felt such uncertainty in their future and made so many mistakes that I had to sit down and think it over. My magic had worked well before, I saw events and the steps that led to them, but it failed against them who look into future too. And they were always one step ahead of me because they watched multiple probable futures. I studied their methods and realized that I have to look ahead in a different light: I need to look into the side branches too. But this method doesn’t only use a lot of magic, it gives me so much information that I have to take notes. And this is how my notes look: a network of timelines that constantly branch and meet again. Thankfully they often unite and lead to the same result, otherwise I could never accomplish anything. This very tangle is the result of me trying to predict the actions of the six of us in this small room. I only did it because Sakura-san asked me to come up with a few macabre little things that fit this suicide squad but won’t get you killed immediately. But I like the result. I almost regret that you’ve never seen me as a witch!”

“I took care of it myself.”, Homura answered. She unwittingly slid closer to Madoka to stay between her and Oriko. That had been a different world and a different Oriko whose soul gem she shot through yet she didn’t feel Madoka safe in her proximity. One Oriko had been capable of the biggest crime Homura could imagine, after all.

“I know.”, the platinum blonde nodded. She was calm, almost cold, but far from threatening. The way she spoke calmed the dark haired girl down. “But you’ve seen everyone else. Even yourself, which is an exceptional privilege.”

Homura was silent for a few seconds then she sighed. “All right. I think I owe you girls that much, after so many years. Who knows whether we’ll be here tomorrow at all, or we’ll all die of getting through Kyouko’s insane plan... I won’t keep it to myself anymore. Every one of you has the right to know her own witch self, after all.”

She didn’t even notice that she contributed to Kyouko’s founding speech. But she could clearly see that their life as they knew it was over, because the new world had no need of former magical girls to patch the tears in time-space. It needed something completely different and it was just being born.

“I’ve already told Madoka everything I knew about Kriemhild Gretchen. I’ve met her more often than any of your witches... yet she’s the one I know the least. I’ve never been inside her labyrinth even though she called me, like everyone else on this planet, to her grief-less world. She was the greatest among the witches, she felt invincible. And I still saw her grief seed when she was born. It had the same bow that Mami has just tied around Madoka’s neck.”

“Mami, you were Candeloro. You were sitting at an eternal tea party in an apple grove, dressed in dolls’ clothes, forever lonely. You might have remembered that I had been your apprentice too because you wanted me to be your guest until the end of the world. You had two familiars, they had been your pupils too: they resembled Madoka and Kyouko. You were probably afraid of them leaving you because you bound them by your ribbons. Even your arms were yellow ribbons, just like those you’re wearing right now.”

“Kyouko, you were Ophelia, the headless horsewoman. You showed up in a colorful kimono, riding a grey horse, wielding a spear, holding your burning wick head high to show the way to your army in the thick fog. You were always looking for a job for a wandering knight. And when you found it you fought hard, multiplying yourself like you didn’t have a whole army at your command. Your name was the hardest to find out because even your messages were hidden in the mist. And it was equally hard to defeat you because there was always a copy of you that survived and multiplied as soon as I released time.”

“And I...”, Homura bowed her head. She didn’t know what to tell anymore.

“Wait, I’ll help you...”, Kyouko offered in her most serious tone. Homura and Madoka gave her a startled look, but she waved for silence with a fanged smile that she intended soothing.

“Our friend Homulilly had one of the queerest labyrinths I’ve ever seen. She set up a mock-up Mitakihara in there and dragged us all in to play like she was still alive. Then she probably realized what she was doing and begged us to save Madoka and let her receive her well deserved execution... These nice red flowers of death bloomed everywhere around her labyrinth, but the finest bouquet was the one in the place of her brain.”

The two girls who had gone through the parallel universe with her sighed in relief. Kyouko might have been able to talk them into her madness without them noticing, but she could also keep her mouth shut. She threw the others’ curiosity a bone without letting out what had happened to the other Homura and Madoka and their entire universe.

“Now that we’ve got to know each other I think we should return to our objective!”, Kyouko warned them when she decided that everyone had enough time to think over what she and Homura had said. “Mami, have you got anything else to say before we begin?”

“The freshmen are practicing right now. They sent their greetings to you.”, the golden haired girl said to Madoka and Homura. “They can’t be here because it would have made Mikuni-san’s notes even more complicated... And Nyameka asked me to give it to you. She feels sorry for you two and she’d like to help.”

She gave a little pink lucky gem to Madoka.

“She got it from a late relative of hers. She thinks that if you had a soul gem it would be just like this.”

Homura had a quick look at the gem and saw that the African girl’s guess wasn’t far from the truth.

Mami then turned to Kyouko.

“Where did you left off?”

“At the part where our little gothlolis didn’t trust my idea.”, the red haired girl shook her head.

“So I wanted to tell them why we’re at advantage.”, she returned to the plan. “Because, the Observers are just making themselves home in our world and use anything they find, including the police and government data bases. It seems that they have 21st century computer systems, which are directly connected to their own. We’d be in trouble if they weren’t because the baldies are clever enough not to use our internet. But even it wouldn’t be enough if the fine gentlemen who designed Meuko hadn’t done such a painstaking work. They left a huge pile of documentation on those disks and I forced myself through a little fraction of it last night. The most important thing I could make out of it is that they were even more thorough than I thought when I saw that massive library of attachments. You get that Meuko is a software, right? And software is always written for a specific computer, should that be a big box at Hochfeld, this desktop PC or your phone. They are all different and you need to write different code for each. But the code I showed you isn’t written for any existing computer. It’s just as unusable for an Observer system as for a Hochfeld box. It has a much more clever design: the simulated personality runs over an intermediate layer that has the sole purpose of running this virtual code so it can be incredibly simple and tiny compared to the main part. And they had written and tested this layer for a lot of different systems!”

Homura began to get her point but she still saw a flaw in her reasoning.

“So you say you can run it on one of their ‘old’ machines, right? But I don’t think you could meddle in anything important from there... And I’m pretty sure that no one at Hochfeld wrote that _layer_ for a 27 th century computer... and I’m also sure that we won’t either!”

“We don’t have to. It’s enough to know who can and give her access to their boxes. After some tinkering I could get to ask her this dawn if she can do it. It took ages for her to answer because the virtual code is very slow on our PC, but her answer was a clear ‘yes’. Anyway, she was happy for us finding her a fitting job out here.”

The plan had a twisted beauty and it even made some sense. The delirious idea proved to be clean strategy: if your foe seems invincible, try attacking its information system. The next logical step would be cutting their supplies, but Homura didn’t even try to think about it yet. But there was something she was worried about. Or someone, to be more exact. She looked at Madoka who looked back. The other three shared a look too, like they had already talked everything over.

“Akemi-san, Kaname-san...”, Mami began. “We know that you worry about each other and that for some reason you’re on the Observer’s radar while they don’t seem to care about us. So you don’t have to come with us. At least not until the end. We’ll need eyes outside though, the more the better. We’ll even bring Yuma-chan, despite her worrying attitude. Yesterday she said that she’d like to be a famous terrorist when she grows up!”

“Like it or not, we’ll be!”, Kyouko said with another grin. She didn’t seem to worry about the child’s attitude, she even looked a bit proud of her.

Mami pushed the empty cups aside in annoyance and placed a city map and a floor plan on the table.

“We’re heading to the police headquarters, not far from the hospital. Our target is this server room.”, she said pointing places on the sheets which were full of notes. “We have two main difficulties. One of them is the police HQ itself, which is full of loyalists and we might even bump into Observers in there. The other is getting there. It’s exactly like getting into the city: impossible without passing at least one checkpoint. So we think that we should make some ruckus at the closest checkpoint, killing two birds with one stone: we could get through and we could even reduce their numbers at the HQ. We’d just have to make a big enough commotion. Do you have any idea?”

“We should simply blow up that checkpoint. Like, with a van full of explosives.”, Homura’s tongue slipped. She wasn’t entirely serious yet she made Kyouko’s face brighten.

“I like this blunt approach! I've been doing nothing lately but operating and stalking schoolgirls... I really begin to feel like a white collar guerrilla. And if you tell me who would the lunatic suicide bomber to drive that van be I’ll really hug you!”

“Me.”, the dark haired girl answered. She even scared Mami and Kyouko, but Madoka was truly horrified. No, _her_ Homura couldn’t be as suicidal as that other one...

“From the outside. Assuming that we have enough Cortexiphan.”, Homura added in deep blush when she saw how much she scared her.

It was her and Mami who were capable of telekinesis in their little team but neither had ever tried to do so complicated things from so far away. But now that Homura, together with Madoka, increased their doses of their regular combat drug by leaps and bounds she felt it possible too. It would be the same as earlier against Walpurgis, only from a safe distance because it was more important to defend her body now that she wasn’t a lich anymore.

Walbey shook his head. He wasn’t happy to see the two competing in taking bigger and bigger doses. He knew that at this rate they were bound to run into serious side effects.

“We have more than enough of that and we can make even more here at the University. Thanks to Mikuni-san we could salvage from Kazamino everything this laboratory missed, in due time. But we’re short of something even more important: some of the soul magnets’ ingredients. It seems that you’re all right now but you have less than three months before your next checkup and Kyouko has even less. And we have a novice too, not much after her first operation!”

“Then our next target will be the Seihou Chemicals warehouse!”, Kyouko announced. “At least we can cause the old Akemi Naoto a little headache. If you don’t mind, Homura...”

Homura didn’t mind. Before she became famous her father would have happily let her rot in a hospital, as far from home as possible. The distinguished family that owned a chemical corporation didn’t need a useless, sickly child. Though they’d have happily take pride of the world-renown UN/VP veteran, after the latest turn of events Homura had probably become unwanted to her parents again – but she couldn’t possibly care less.

As she looked around at her company she had to laugh out bitterly.

Tomoe Mami: she had lost her family a few years before Walpurgisnacht in a car accident. Sakura Kyouko: her father had a mental breakdown, got drunk and massacred his entire family. The only thing he didn’t know that he couldn’t just kill a magical girl. When Kyouko regained consciousness in a pool of blood the first thing she saw was him, hanging from a burning beam. Mikuni Oriko had admired her politician father but he proved to be a corrupt thief and hanged himself just like Reverend Sakura. Nyameka Gretel Mathibe: had she been there they could have seen Oriko’s mirror image in her, with a minor difference. Her father hadn’t been a thief but a murderer and was killed by his own accomplices. Chitose Yuma: her mother accidentally stayed alive in this timeline but the child would have been better off with anything but living with that psychopath.

And Madoka had joined this company, together with Homura as Junko and Tomohisa were much more like a real family to her than her biological parents could ever be.

She thought of the typewriter on the Goddess’ desk. Madokami saves everyone... they could ask her to take them away. How could the other Kaname parents handle two by two daughters...? But she knew in her heart that it would be an act of mere escapism. This occupied world was their reality. Even the existence of the Hexenkommando was a sick joke, just like the entire world. Only one thing had left for them: answer the joke with a joke and laugh at their own misery.

She felt Madoka’s hand on hers. The other girl shook her head with watery eyes. Homura saw in her gaze that Madoka had felt her every thought, even without their direct link.

“All right.”, Mami continued. “Then we’ll go through everyone’s post, only via Street View, though. We don’t want them to see us twice at the same place. I’ve been to all of them in the last weeks so I’ll tell you the differences and Mikuni-san will have comments too. Then she’ll coordinate the whole operation through an encrypted transmitter.”

Now they called in the rookies too. They needed every eye to see as much as they could.

“Your most vital task is to provide information.”, Oriko said to everyone. Walbey nodded, he had already seen this network in action. “It doesn’t matter what kind of information. If you notice something, tell me right away. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s insignificant, it can still affect the future. Our experience shows that Cortexiphan helps your subconscious to sort out what’s important. Akemi-san, Kaname-san, you won’t have any trouble. You’ll receive such a massive dose that you could manage even without me... but everyone else is going to get the amount they need.”

They looked around in the neighborhood together and practiced to describe what they saw. The three girls who had just come back from the parallel world were new to reading out the scenery and people, even though Kyouko had already done something like that on the way to the Universe. Nonetheless, Oriko's explanation made it clearer for her too. Then Homura and Madoka injected themselves a bigger dose of Cortexiphan than ever and went out to the courtyard to train a van.

First Homura had a clear view at the vehicle then she hid behind a wall and relied on Madoka’s telepathic transmission. They learned the radius of the dark haired girl’s telekinesis and saw that she would surely need to hole up close to the target and follow the van through Madoka’s eyes. No other pair in the team was close enough for this task and even they wasted the vehicle badly before they learned to confidently park it in front of an imaginary checkpoint.

“Well, we can’t mangle it much more than you’ve already done...”, Kyouko remarked when she appeared with the newbies and began to pack the battered van with explosives they had already prepared. They blasted Homura’s hopes to spend some time with Madoka and show her how she had made her first pipe bombs.

Everything was set for their first and maybe last mission. When the others left Madoka drew Kyouko aside.

“Kyouko-chan... Homura-chan and I... we won’t be here for a while.” Any other time Kyouko would have laughed at her embarrassment but this time it felt like a knife twisted in her body. “See, we’ve lost everyone and I can’t even tell if we can make it... We’d like to say goodbye before the mission. We’ll be back by the time you need us.”

“All right, keep your explanation. You two are in love, it’s just right that you desire each other. It’s okay. I’ll make up something if they look for you.”, Kyouko sighed, unable to resist Madoka’s pleading look. She could almost see Mami turn away trying to fight back her secret, shameful envy and loneliness with watery eyes and Oriko scornfully wrinkle up her nose. There are times when any fabrication works better than the truth...

“And... Madoka!”, she called after the leaving pinkette. “I swear I’ll bring you two back alive! It would be a waste to lose such wonderful little sisters.”

Her smile wasn’t completely honest but Madoka was still thankful for it.

* * *

It was an escape from the cruel world, as close as they could get to one another. They wanted to expel everything else from their minds because they were just as disturbed inside as clean outside. Their funeral dresses laid folded on the chairs next to the bed. They wore nothing but their new tokens: the flower in Homura’s hair and the pink ribbon around Madoka’s neck. Homura had never seen the sweet, gentle Madoka so rough. This made her understand how frightened the other girl was. This time they were really holding on the edge of a chasm, within an inch of losing each other.

Madoka drank in her sight, her taste, her scent, her touch. She was feeding on her and just couldn’t get enough. With her every imperfection, every scar and visible bone the thin girl was heartbreakingly beautiful to her. Homura was right here _now_ , but who knew if she would be here tomorrow, or that tomorrow would ever arrive...? Madoka had completely lost in her.

She was brought to her senses by a painful squeak. She saw Homura biting her lip, fighting to keep quiet. The realization startled Madoka. She hadn’t meant to do any harm to Homura who loved her so truly and selflessly that she had even sold her soul just to save her... Madoka had sworn to protect Homura and now she was hurting her... She took her in her arms and begged for forgiveness. The other girl just looked back through her tears and smiled while stroking her face. Homura just couldn’t be cross with her, could never think ill of her. Sometimes Madoka was afraid that this was the reason she kept Homura by her side. She was ashamed, she wanted to right and atone for everything she could have ever hurt Homura with. She looked into the lavender eyes a little fearfully as she returned to where she left off, with much gentler moves this time. Homura didn’t mind. She wanted only one thing: to be close to Madoka, and they were very, very close now.

* * *

The time arrived and they entered the laboratory, hand in hand, eyes red from crying. Kyouko gave Madoka a curious look just to get answered with the same sad, bleak smile. She averted her eyes and kept on picking up lab tools from the floor. They were scattered by herself a little earlier, to Walbey’s great annoyance, when her argument with Oriko went a bit out of hand.

The team’s all-important oracle seemed to know something and she didn’t bother with revealing it to Kyouko. Since their morning meeting she had spent her time with maniacally scribbling her frustrating lines in her notebook. After a few hours she drew Walbey aside and when they returned they demanded worrying preparations from Kyouko and Mami. Walbey even kept Nyameka in the laboratory saying that she reminded him of Astrid.

“Oriko! If our mission is bound to fail why do you let us go for it? You like to toy with our lives?”, she snarled in the blonde’s face.

“It’s far from ‘ _bound to fail’_. If you succeed to accurately follow this line,”, she pointed at a thick red stripe that zigzagged through a dozen pages, “we can achieve such a success you can’t even imagine! Believe me, it’s worth doing. Nothing else is worth doing.”

Kyouko was worried by this very unexpected success and she didn’t fail to let Oriko know. But now that the two smaller girls returned she kept quiet. She had lost the argument and she feared the rules of time she couldn’t understand. She was worried to death for her friends but she forced herself to keep tidying the lab in silence. After all, they knew that they were about to do something really dangerous, and Kyouko was afraid that her very warning could put them in even greater danger.


	15. Wind God Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the part where the girls have brilliant careers: they really become terrorists. And a riddle: Who's the fastest in Gensokyo? And who's the fastest in Mitakihara?
> 
> What if it hurts? Oh, it will. Believe me, it will.
> 
> Congratulations for the great achievements: ...And When Homura Is Joking, Breakneck Speed, Ophelia, Candy, Gretchen, Lilly, Kid, Oracle, Observers, The Same Yet Different

# Wind God Girl

_v0.902_

A beat-up van parked in the middle of Mitakihara, not far from an Observer checkpoint. The unknown driver seemed to exactly know the location of the surveillance cameras and they had been carefully preventing anyone to trace back where they’d come from.

Two girls got out of the car in the very second and way their plan specified. One of them was a blonde dressed in a neat and comfortable denim outfit. The only strange thing in her polished look was the loose yellow ribbons hanging from her jacket’s sleeves but they weren’t enough to catch anyone’s attention in this city. The other girl could have been the red haired effigy of cool informality – if she had been able to stay still for a second. She wore cut-off jeans with a black singlet and a worn military green light backpack.

They parted ways. The blonde plunged into a store while the redhead walked through the checkpoint, right under the loyalists’ noses. She passed unmarked by the guards with tattooed faces. They just had a brief look at the display to see if there was anything odd about her and kept on standing apathetically.

“ _This was the last time you let me through like this!”_ , she thought with a bit of wicked joy, fishing out an apple from the depths of her backpack. If they had known the content of that backpack they’d have considered her the number one public enemy instead of chasing after her two unfortunate friends. She was the _commandante_ of this cell and she was going to make it to the front pages... She kept on chewing her apple, strolling around in the hospital park.

“Oracle, it’s Ophelia here. I’ve got through.”, she munched then she tossed the stump into the bushes. She was wearing a hardly visible headset, just like the other members of her team. The encryption of their conversation was strong enough to take impractically long to crack but Kyouko didn’t want to miss such a great opportunity for a twisted joke.

“It’s Candy here, I’m in exact position. I’ve been waiting for you!”, she heard in her ear.

“It’s Gretchen here. Exact position, perfect view, I’m ready!”

“It’s Lilly here, exact position. I’m ready start the engine. Are there civilians left in the radius?”

“It’s the Oracle here. Requesting recon data.”

“Oracle, it’s the Kid here. Exact position, I see everything. A black van has just stopped at the checkpoint. They’re changing shifts. Scouting drone incoming from the front.”

“It’s Gretchen here. Grey Nissan from the right stopped at the traffic light. Three students passing the road, one boy, two girls. They’re leaving the radius.”

“It’s Lilly here. Observer approaching from the railway station with a briefcase. The third car on the right leaves the parking lot, turns toward the checkpoint. The waiter who served me entered the building.”

“It’s the Kid here. A flock of birds landed before me. A little girl in red dress released a balloon.”

“Lilly, it’s the Oracle speaking. Permission granted. Start at T plus eight seconds.”

The girl in funeral dress and twin braids was sitting on the terrace of a creperie: a modest, sad beauty with an artificial flower in her black hair. A plate was lying on the table before her with sweets she had barely tasted and a glass of mineral water. She raised it to her lips and took a sip before looking at her watch. Ten seconds to go. Five. Three. She closed her eyes and stretched her consciousness to find the other, familiar soul. She found her, and the hazy, distorted view from Madoka’s binoculars filled her mind’s eye.

Just a street away, a formerly white van left the parking lot and approached the checkpoint at an easy pace.

* * *

“How was the day?”, the mustached young man asked when he arrived to relieve his colleague. The markings on their faces showed that the older guard was ranked higher.

“The usual crap. Boring. The baldies warned us to stay alert but nothing happened. No matter what they say, they aren’t infallible... Whatever. You know the number in case of anything happening...”

The younger Loyalist frowned then shrugged. He didn’t really care if the old man wanted to get it in the neck so much that he couldn’t shut his mouth... At least there would be a vacancy, someone would be promoted... He felt like helping him by whispering a few words in the right ears.

The ‘old man’ who wasn’t more than forty reached for his bag when he heard the familiar beeping. He turned back to do this last task before joining his leaving colleagues.

“Your papers...”, he ordered in a bored tone through the guard shack’s window. They paid more attention to the cars than the pedestrians who were usually only scanned by the automatic face recognition system.

The younger loyalist couldn’t see what happened outside, only that the other took his gun, leaned out of the window then bumped his head into its metal frame and burst into fierce cursing. The younger glanced at the display and instantly reached for his phone. He saw the road equivalent of ghost ships on the screen, but he didn’t have enough time left to report it to anyone.

* * *

As the rain of glass shards stopped the girl in funeral dress crawled out from under the table where she had been hiding from the explosion she triggered. While the staff and the guests were sitting petrified or running up and down in shock she left the payment for the crepes and water next to her plate and entered the building to leave on the other side.

“ _So you can remember that a good girl was here...”_

She laughed bitterly at her own joke. She thought of the family that had taken her in and Madoka who was having an even harder time now. But Homura had cried enough for the both of them. She clenched her teeth and endured the memories and the terrible headache that was most probably caused by the drug she had taken. It would be worse, she thought.

“ALWAYS LOOKING FORWARD”, the huge display above her head proclaimed. The black and white portrait of an Observer seemed to look somewhere out of the screen and the sight of the ordinary people. Probably into the future. But this time he had to see something he wasn’t looking forward to...

The valley among the houses with broken windows was full of wrecked cars and shocked and curious people. The thin girl easily worked her way through the commotion unnoticed. She couldn’t see any civilian victims and she was thankful for that. Too many unnecessary deaths had followed in her wake. She gave a nod and a bleak smile to the other similarly dressed girl who arrived from beyond the square. They shared a look and parted their ways again to take their new posts.

* * *

Their friends in the park got up and walked toward the backstair entrance of the police station. Even they couldn’t understand the next part of the plan but they knew what to do. All five girls gathered in the neighborhood and while the Observers’ officers gathered at the explosion site they transmitted their reports to Oriko from their scattered stands. She played the role of the spider in the middle of her web and instructed them to do seemingly meaningless little things. Kyouko smiled at a boy, Homura moved to the next bench while she picked up an empty beer can and put it where she had been sitting. Madoka greeted two old ladies, Yuma crossed a road a bit late of the green light.

And they didn’t cease giving readings of the environment in a way only the Observers could have understood. Oriko collected and arranged the data, sometimes acknowledging that they were on the planned track, sometimes giving more instructions.

Finally she decided that the time had arrived and sent Kyouko’s illusion clones and the real Mami in the almost empty police station. Kyouko waited a minute then followed her golden haired friend in the cover of a negative illusion of herself. As they entered the building they disappeared from the others’ radars. They cut the radio link too because it would have been too easy to track down their broadcast inside. From that second they had to follow the exact track they had learned and repeated to Oriko before leaving. The platinum blonde girl kept collecting information and followed future after future as Kyouko and Mami approached their destination through the partly vacated building. Used grief seeds piled up on the metal plate on her desk in the University lab.

The _eyes_ kept sending their readings to her. Homura reported stranger and stranger things but they had been counting on it and Oriko had warned her not to withhold anything from her. On the contrary she wanted her to tell about the visions just like the other parts of her environment and Homura started to understand the reason. Sometimes time itself seemed to split up before her eyes and she could see two of everything, with several seconds of time difference. These moments did never last too long and she couldn’t force them but they made her feel like she had a glimpse in Oriko’s secrets.

Madoka had taken a dangerous dose of Cortexiphan too but it seemed to have a different effect on her. At least Homura heard nothing strange in her reports.

They waited for two hours. Darkness fell and they heard nothing about Mami and Kyouko but Oriko’s sporadic assessments that they were exactly following the plan. The watchers began to worry and the readings made the overdosed girls’ heads spin. Yet they held on, they couldn’t fail their friends in the enemy’s lair.

Finally the interlopers returned and reported their success. From that time on the others paved their way back to the University. Mami and Kyouko were the first to return to the lab with Yuma following leaving the wanted pair for last.

“I have a little surprise for you!”, they heard Kyouko’s voice when she was safe, together with Yuma. “You can head back now. Keep your eyes open on your way, it won’t be an everyday sight! You don’t have to hurry. Meuko reported that something had accidentally happened to the most wanted list so you’re safe to enjoy the show...”

Something had really happened. People stopped on the street and stared at the huge displays, like under a spell.

“Everyone in Japan sees the same broadcast now! Sayaka would be proud!”

Kyouko saluted, even though neither the blunette nor the two that she was talking to could see.

Madoka and Homura looked upon the screens at once. The crowd was dumbfounded for a reason. There was no one to look forward and no lists of the wanted was forced down everyone’s throat. They could see a single, cheeky face that challenged the authority. A revolutionist with the smile of an adorable scoundrel, in a Che Guevara beret: Sakura Kyouko.

“Believe!”, the writing said. It was a promise. Someone, somewhere, still resisted. Someone was fighting for them. There was someone who saw the light. Someone who still had hope.

Then came a list. A very different list than what the Observers’ propaganda had been repeating.

“Remember!”, said the new writing.

A long series of faces, many recognized by people in the crowd. The girls saw reactions of pain and anger everywhere around them. Then the faces weren’t strangers anymore: the Kaname family was looking back from the screens. They had officially become martyrs of the new Revolution. The pinkette couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. She felt a hand on her shoulder, a compassionate touch. A few streets from there the same happened to the dark haired girl. It wasn’t Kyouko who tortured them with the images. It was the AI planned for human experiments, sowing the seeds of resistance.

Homura gave a sad smile to the people around her then turned back heading to the University. The streets were in an uproar. A ripe tomato splashed on the windscreen of the Loyalists’ van and many more followed. The armed men just stood there helplessly, they couldn’t believe what happened. Then they retreated and drove away without a single shot.

On the way back she and Madoka kept talking to Oriko and listened the others’ reports. It seemed that they succeeded but they couldn’t live under the illusion that they had won. The enemy’s might was overwhelming and Homura expected the Loyalists return in any minute, or the mysterious Observers put a quick and brutal end to the beginning riots - but nothing happened.

She was walking in a deserted neighborhood again. The shadows cast by the lamps carved the street into bright islands that kept sliding away on the sea of darkness. The girl saw colorful blotches in the blackness and heard spooky giggling. She recalled her parallel’s words.

“ _Have you ever seen them outside your head? Would you like to? There’s fourteen of them and each one is as strong as a magical girl!”_

Homura shook her head. No, she wouldn’t.

“ _Who do you think did throw the first tomato?”_

She began to feel that she had gone too far. Cortexiphan seemed to have a life of its own in her veins.

“ _How do you think you can move things from the distance?”_

Someone was approaching. Homura strained her eyes in vain, she couldn’t recognize the dark shape. The shadow wore clothes that could have even belonged to Madoka... but this someone had twin braids. The blow she felt made her head spin but cleared up her vision. She was walking towards herself from a few hours earlier. As they met the earlier Homura disappeared in a flash of light. The girl swallowed hard.

“I’ve just met myself.”, she informed Oriko.

“I’m sorry... Akemi-san, Kaname-san... be strong!”, the two girls heard the answer that didn’t explain anything.

They couldn’t make out the exact words Kyouko had threatened to kill Oriko with but the Oracle’s answer made their blood run cold.

“Do you seriously believe that you can take on a real magical girl on a few milligrams of combat drugs?”

“Stop fighting, now!”, they heard Mami shouting. The two opponents didn’t listen, the girls on the field could almost see the redhead snarl as she snapped at Oriko.

“I hope you have at least bit of decency left in you and you didn’t only make us assemble this spaghetti to lull us into letting them die out there! And I hope you won’t hold back because we both deserve what we’ll get from each other!”

Nothing but static noise and Madoka’s trembling voice remained.

“Homura-chan... I’ve been found...”

Homura closed her eyes for a brief moment. She found Madoka’s signature two streets away. She took the emergency switchblade from her pocket and cut her long black skirt short to free her legs. She was already running when she grabbed her gun.

“Madoka! I’m coming for you!”, she shouted while running faster than ever. Her loosened hair fluttered in her wake. She had a stitch in her side but she didn’t care. She ran like she was running for her life, but anyone who’d thought so would have been wrong: she was running for Madoka’s life that made her own seem insignificant by comparison. But no one could see her, at least no one could recognize the former magical girl in the pitch black blur as it darted along the street.

“Madoka, hold on, I’m here!”

She found them in an empty alley. The pinkette had just emptied a magazine into the bald man in a fedora hat but he didn’t even blink. A handful of bullets clattered quietly on the pavement as the Observer casually dropped them. Then he disappeared in the middle of a step. It took a moment for Homura to recognize his inconveniently familiar fighting style but when she saw him standing behind Madoka, strangling the pinkette, she fired without hesitation.

The Observer finally stopped ignoring her. He threw Madoka aside, straightened his back then turned to face Homura. He tilted his head and studied her for a moment before speaking.

“We have found your traces in the pattern of the universe, both in Kazamino and Mitakihara. We do exactly know when you crossed over. We knew that you were coming here, everything happened the way we arranged. We just had to set things in motion and wait for your friends to break into our central system. Then we could re-enact your complete timeline. They certainly caused some inconvenience to us, but dispatching you two was worth the price. You have been useful to us but we won’t need you in the future.”

The man had a look at the little display he wore on his wrist.

“Interesting. You have deviated from your extrapolated futures. You should have just arrived.”

Homura didn’t even comprehend his words. She could only see him taking up Madoka again and flicking open a switchblade. She grabbed his wrist to twist the knife out of his hand while Madoka slammed her head into his face – but the pinkette couldn’t hit anything but the empty air where he had just been.

The hand that Homura had been grabbing now held her firmly. The wrenching made the knife turn back to her and the Observer didn’t hesitate to stab. Homura didn’t even realize that the cone cells in her eyes had already given up and left her in a dark grey world. She easily wriggled out of the grip, dodged the _incredibly slow_ stab and landed a kick on her _motionless_ opponent’s spine. She felt a wicked crack as her foot got in touch with the Observer and smashed him into the wall. The impact sent the blade flying and knocked the hat off his head. The wall cracked and a few bricks tumbled down the other side. Homura was the most surprised by her own strength.

The man slowly got on his feet, put his hat on while studying the fragile girl who had just crashed him through a wall.

“You do not realize what is happening to you. You have made a grave mistake.”

As he spoke Madoka could see the bruises on his face and his bloody teeth. He wasn’t invincible after all. But she could also see Homura instinctively standing on one foot, hardly touching the ground with the other.

“Homura-chan, your foot...”

The other couldn’t hear a word. She flicked her liquid night hair back with her right hand then she unwittingly reached for her shield scratching the empty air with her fingertips. Madoka sat paralyzed with fear as the two clashed again. She was unable to intervene: she just had no idea where they would be in the next second, if they would be at _one place_ at all. Bullets hit the walls harmlessly as they were dodged even before fired. Madoka could see mere snapshots as a kick or blow hit its target. She had never seen the time traveler Homura fight to the death. The battle of Walpurgisnacht had just been gaining time, a ballet performance with minimal use of magic. This fight was cruel, underhanded and chaotic. Madoka had just got up but she found herself on the ground again. She felt the other girl’s arms dragging her down but then Homura disappeared in an instant. Bullets pierced the air where Madoka had just been. The Observer froze and pawed the air before his chest in surprise. Vivid red stain of blood spread on his suit from a hand-sized cavity of raw meat. Madoka carefully shot him in the head, just in case, then she ran to catch Homura.

The dark haired girl collapsed a few meters away, exactly like she had smashed into a hard and heavy object. The object had been her own recoiling pistol that hit the pavement with metallic clatter. Homura tried to brace herself against the ground but her arms bent at unnatural places. She gave in to gravity and flattened against the sidewalk quietly squeaking in pain. Madoka felt like taking her in her arms but she was afraid of injuring her even more. She quickly but carefully felt along her body and knew that she would need immediate medical help. Everything that could break was broken inside her. The pinkette’s eyes filled with tears as Homura gave her a bleak smile with blood seeping out of her ears and the corner of her mouth.

“You’re alive, Madoka...”, she whispered.

The other girl just couldn’t bring herself to smile back.

More Observers stepped out of the empty air. Madoka didn’t even get what she was doing: she didn’t care about the pain she caused just grabbed the other girl’s shoulders and closed her eyes. She felt a strong pull and dizziness but she didn’t let Homura go. She was an impossible creature again, in the superposition of despair and hope.


	16. Forbidden Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part where Homura gets undressed again... For science, you monster!
> 
> During the whole time of writing MGC and GOSE I've been trying my best to make my world follow the strict rules it inherited from its parent canons and what I laid down to fill the gaps. So it's time to start turning everything inside out. Or upside down. The next chapter is called Reverse Ideology for a reason. There are times when nothing's what it seems. And there are times when nothing is what it is.
> 
> Tags on toes: Mutually Assured Destruction; Soul Gems connect Near The Heart; Akemi Homura, Child Of Man
> 
> The second tag is a wave to Rumiberri. When I read their theory about the soul gems' connection to the body I instantly knew that one day I'd use this new information. This is how it ended up.
> 
> Mature tag [moderate]: Avant-garde surgery
> 
> Beta read: shiNIN

# Forbidden Magic

_v0.912_

“Kyouko, Nyameka, bring the spinal board and lift Homura on this table! Tomoe-san, mix new doses of etamsylate and Cortexiphan then prepare a grief seed!”

Madoka glanced around in a daze. She had succeeded. They were in the lab where everything had begun and where the Hexenkommando had just been founded. An operating table stood before her next to a platform from where the little white creature supervised his team.

“Madoka, you must know that we have no other choice. The internal bleeding is too strong. The only thing we can do is gaining a little time.”, he spoke inside her head while picking a drop of Homura’s seeping blood into the pipette between his teeth. “We’ll do our best. I’d have never thought that we’d ever need to do this, but we can’t keep her alive without magic. We’re trying to stabilize her to gain the five minutes we need to prepare her for the transplant. I’m sorry for trampling on everything we were fighting for... I just don’t know any other way. But I can’t let you lose her, it would break my heart!”

Despaired pink eyes gazed upon him. Magic? Transplant? Madoka didn’t understand a thing. Perhaps she didn’t want to understand. She knew that the life of the only one that really mattered to her in this world was in grave danger and she couldn’t do anything for her. But the others had already prepared and they worked with smooth and practiced moves. They strapped the unconscious Homura to a spinal board and lifted her onto the operating table. The redhead cut her clothes open with a pair of scissors.

“Great fucking God...”, Kyouko grunted. She couldn’t find a hand-sized patch without bruises on the skinny body. “What has this lunatic done? I couldn’t beat a word out of our precious Oracle!”

“She protected me from an Observer...”, Madoka sniffled. “They fought and she killed him... It was terrible! Poor Homura-chan... If it wasn’t for her I’d be dead...”

Kyouko sighed. Madoka raised her eyes just to see that the redhead’s face didn’t look any better: it was black and blue with dark rim around one eye, her mouth puffed and bleeding in the corner. Madoka stared at her like she was a ghost.

“Don’t worry about me. Oriko’s outside and we stopped fighting. By the principle of mutually assured destruction we called it a draw... But at least you should have taken better care of Homura when I failed you... She’s crazy enough to die for you and she’s perfectly capable too... Goddammit, I should have thought... At least I can’t break my own neck with Rosso Fantasma... But I won’t be stupid enough anymore to leave you two in Oriko’s care!”

She fell silent. She simply didn’t have the time to blame herself, it would have only distracted her. While she was speaking her hands kept moving, sticking Homura full of electrodes from top to toe.

She didn’t stop until the last, biggest needle. That was the point where she reached her wit’s end.

“Walbey, even her sternum is broken...”

“Wedge it from behind while you hammer the pin in!”, the little creature advised. “It doesn’t matter if the ends part, she’ll only have to survive a few more minutes...”

“I was afraid that you’d tell this... Madoka, Nyameka, take those scalpels and stick it under the bone in a shallow angle then push it up! And try not to puncture her lungs... How does it feel on the other side of the knife, rookie?”

Nyameka was filled with a sickly mix of shock and worry and nausea. She could only answer with a jaded look while she obeyed.

“I’m sorry, Homura...”, the redhead murmured as she hammered in the last electrode. The sight made Madoka sick too.

“Grief seed connected!”, Mami reported.

“Protolink established!”, Kyouko lifted a rubber gloved hand in salute.

They weren’t late, the ECG was still beeping. The little animal gave a relieved sigh and locked the test tube in one of his mysterious machines.

“Nucleus ready, high frequency biasing active! We only have to wait and pray.”

“I haven’t prayed since my parents’ funeral... And I can’t even imagine what kind of God would listen us after all we have done...”, Kyouko answered in a colorless tone.

“Can I hold her hand?”, Madoka asked. “I mean, won’t it hurt Homura-chan?”

“What we are about to do could only hurt you but even that possibility is highly improbable. Everything’s set up correctly: we’ve built a standard soul guide mesh, emulated the cardiac link and readied a grief seed to absorb the energy of the crystallization. At least you’ll be with her.”

So she stayed there holding the other girl’s hand, her tears falling on the broken fingers. Of course she knew... She should have taken better care of Homura-chan...

A little later Walbey broke the silence.

“I’m so sorry, Madoka, I don’t know if you can ever forgive me... I never wanted to perform this operation yet I didn’t hold you back when it wasn’t late. Right now we are taking a step towards becoming Incubators... I begin to understand Homura. We break everything we touch: we saved her just to make her a magical girl again, you gave her a loving family just to lose them... We fought the Incubators, our descendants won and they’ll defeat us too. We’ve created a lot of things that shouldn’t exist. Shouldn’t we start everything from scratch, now wiser?”

The little creature placed his paw on Madoka’s hand. The girl stroked his head with watery eyes.

“Walbey... I know that you just wanted to help us. To help magical girls and the world. I don’t blame you. But at last I know what to do. I can only hope at this moment but believe me, I have enough hope for all of us. My hope is Homura-chan. Save her and we’ll start everything from scratch! I want to have a talk with myself when the worst of it is over!”

“Good. I’ve talked with God too.”, Walbey answered.

Madoka gave him a perplexed look. She recalled every word they had said since they returned but she was quite confident that they hadn’t blabbed out her parallel’s secret and that Kyouko held her mouth too. So she kept silent and let Walbey speak.

“I know you don't blame me. But look at me! I have to hide in this body, running away from my just punishment. This might even be my very punishment. But I know that His mercy is infinite. I've been this low before. I had played with the impossible and poked at something only He should touch. I did something unforgivable and He was the only one who could free me from my sin. I asked for a sign of forgiveness, a white tulip. And He heard my prayer and sent it to me."

Madoka watched her in silence, her face determined, her fists clenched by her side. Now that Walbey wasn’t absorbed by his own sins it had finally dawned on him what the girl wanted to do.

“We don’t know what kind of magic she’ll have when she wakes up. Probably similar to what she had years ago. What you’re planning will hurt you, but you’re right: we have no other hope. I’ll prepare you two for what you want, if she wakes up. If not... you’ll have every right to hate me!”

“She’s going to awaken!”, Madoka hissed in anger.

Minutes passed, measured by beeps of the ECG. Walbey admired how strong these girls held on to life, hope and each other. But the world didn’t care anymore. Homura’s heartbeats became less frequent and more irregular. Then nothing remained but that eerie, long beep. Madoka gently held the dead girl’s hand and whispered something in her ear.

Walbey tensely eyed the display. Thousands of cryptic numbers represented the chemical reactions in the test tube and now they began to move. First a few digits started to fluctuate then the readings seemed to come alive in a dazzling dance.

“Come on Homura, you can’t slip out now!”, Kyouko snarled. “If you leave Madoka alone I’ll beat you to death!”

“We have her! I reverse the protolink!”, they heard Walbey’s telepathic shout. A few key-presses later the spinning numbers seemed to gradually settle down. The little creature looked pleased with the result.

“Primary link stable. Now disassemble the mesh! The umbilical cord should be the last. I don’t know if our construct can handle a hundred meters but it should definitely work from this distance.”

Nyameka and Kyouko pulled out the electrodes from Homura’s body in the same order as they stuck them in.

“Madoka, I think it should be you who gives her the gem.”, Walbey offered. “Don’t worry, it’s not easy to break. Just put it in her hands and hold them tight because she’ll probably spasm. Take the grief seed too. She’ll need it. As injured as she is she’ll probably automatically use her magic.”

Madoka opened the contraption’s door and reached for the test tube that sat in the ring of coils like a cup of tea in the microwave. A little piece of stone rattled inside which she spilled in her palm after removing the plug and the connected bundle of cables. It was smaller than normal soul gems and shapeless like a piece of solid resin only colder and harder. It was perfectly clean and glittered in an incredible deep shade of purple the way tiger’s eye does. It was the second time she held Homura in her hand like this. She gently kissed the little gem and took it to the dead girl then she wrapped it in her hand and placed it on her chest.


	17. Reverse Ideology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part where even time travel won't work the way it used to anymore... Perversion of science knows no limits, though I must admit that my grin of teeth passed my ears both sides when I made up this alliance. Made up...? It was necessary.
> 
> Oh, I forgot to mention... I had planned a scene where they would have tested the new soul gem. It finally didn't make it to the final version but I tell you the result, okay? It's 62 meters. Ain't bad of a prototype, ne?
> 
> P.M.M.M. Hashtag (don't even try to understand): Time Paradox, CTC, Linearity Convention, Temporal Shielding, The Liver Is A Large Ugly Mystery
> 
> Here comes some explanation:
> 
> "One feature of a Closed Timelike Curve is that it opens the possibility of a worldline which is not connected to earlier times, and so the existence of events that cannot be traced to an earlier cause. Ordinarily, causality demands that each event in spacetime is preceded by its cause in every rest frame. However, in a CTC, causality breaks down, because an event can be "simultaneous" with its cause — in some sense an event may be able to cause itself."
> 
> (Wikipedia)
> 
> I'll be more careful with the chainsaw next time.

# Reverse Ideology

_v0.903_

“Why don’t you try your new power?”, Walbey asked. He wanted to see if they could reach deep enough with this new Cortexiphan dose. Everything could stand or fall on it.

Madoka nodded and closed her eyes. She recalled as the others changed to their magical girl dresses and felt her clothes transform too. Her new outfit was pink and black, short and modern, almost utilitarian. Apparently designed not to slow her down. There was something in these clothes that reminded her of the time traveler Homura. Of course, the thought of their connection filled her mind when the drug surged through her bloodstream... She loved and supported the other girl from the bottom of her heart.

She felt the flow of magical energy inside as she raised her hands to have a look at her new archer gloves. She conjured up the weapon fitting for them, pink flames flowed through her fingers as she drew the string of pure energy.

“Madoka, please say you haven’t...”

Homura sat on the table staring at her with a livid face. Madoka dispelled the bow, rushed to her and threw her arms around her before the other girl could have done something she’d regret later.

“Oh my God, of course not! I’m sorry that we couldn’t find any other way to save you, but I really haven’t... Walbey gave me a pile of Cortexiphan to let me follow you. I’ll be with you, Homura-chan! We’ll go back and set everything right. We won’t let any of this happen!”

Madoka’s unnaturally yellow eyes didn’t calm Homura. The color itself reminded her of the Goddess, but it was all different in this world. Her Madoka’s irises remained pink islands floating in the yellow seas.

“Don’t worry, Homura-chan! I’ve survived the dose, everything will be alright! When we arrive it’ll be all gone. I know that you got your body back as it had been every time you jumped back in time. It’ll be the same for me. But everything else will be different this time. I’ll remember, I’ll know you, you won’t have to fight the silly child me who wanted so much to be a magical girl!”

Homura buried her face in her hands. It was a relief that Madoka didn’t make a contract with the enemy, but she found a huge gap in the line of her thoughts.

“Madoka... We can’t stop anything from happening! You know that we can only make a new fork in the past. We’ll fail everyone in this world...”

“I still say that you should go.”, Walbey interrupted. “If you can’t do it for us, do it for yourselves. Even if we can’t get anyone but you two out of this doomed world it’ll be worth it. And you can do something for us too. Send us a message if you succeed! Let us have at least one more last, Pyrrhic victory.”

“You should listen to him.”, they heard in their heads. The mental voice belonged to a real Incubator.

“Why is this … thing here?”, Mami asked as she stepped through the lab’s door, followed by a silent Kyouko.

“Don’t misunderstand me, this time I haven’t come as your enemy.”, the Incubator smiled. “I’m observing you and I might even be able to help you.”

“Why would you help us?”, Homura asked with suspicion in her voice. “Would you like to betray your own species?”

“On the contrary.”, the alien wagged his tail. “These bald men are your successors who devolved their _nucleus accumbens_ to suppress their emotions. If they take your place in the future we won’t be able to collect any more energy from this planet. This would be something you couldn’t manage no matter how hard you tried. Our best interest is not to let it happen. Your ability is our invaluable asset in this fight, Akemi Homura. To be more precise, it would be if we cared if you can preserve another world for the local Incubators. Your friends might be happy to receive your victory message but we need low entropy energy. So we’d like you to do it in a different way.”

Homura clenched her teeth, her fingers unwittingly groping around the sand timer of her shield.

“I wouldn’t recommend you to take a sudden jump. You’d probably leave Kaname Madoka behind which would be her death sentence unless your friends get her a new liver. Even your usual drug is far from harmless in the amount she took.”

Homura stared at Madoka shocked, then her gaze shifted to the Incubator, then back to Madoka.

“You’ve really come to torture them?”, Mami snapped at the alien. “You’d better get out before we shoot you to death!”

This time it was Kyouko who held her back. If he was telling the truth (and they could be accused of many things but lying) this time they really had a common interest. Anyhow, their guest seemed confident enough to answer without so much as a blink.

“Not at all. We’d merely like to persuade Akemi Homura and Kaname Madoka. Even though we’ve been observing humanity for aeons we don’t understand this kind of attachment. They do pointless things to each other’s bodies while they can’t seem to form a collective consciousness like we do. But we can count on it, even if we don’t understand. They’ll accept my offer and you can’t change it by shooting me a few times.”

The Incubator raised his head with a triumphant smile. Perhaps it looked so only for the humans. The aliens, in principle, didn’t have emotions.

“Of course making Akemi Homura turn into a witch right now would partly make up for our loss so we considered that possibility too. But our gain can be far greater if we let you follow your plan in a better way. Dr Walter Bishop who misleadingly wears our research team’s looks does surely understand why I told it all to you. To assure him about our benevolence we even brought the component with which David Robert Jones’ device can give Akemi Homura the power to alter the current timeline. The device is still accessible below the Kazamino base. We have no doubt that Dr Bishop could find the solution by himself but the University obviously doesn’t have the sufficient equipment to construct such a high tech part. Your time is running out. We can’t sustain the temporal shielding that has been concealing you much longer. Even as I speak the Observers, as you call them, are scanning this timeline for the point where they can get around it. In the vast majority of the possible futures they learn that you’re hiding at the University within 24 hours.”

“So you say you’ll provide them everything and they only have to go back in time to prevent the Observers from taking over the Earth. This is exactly what they’d do anyway.”, Walbey summarized. “It sounds suspiciously good. What are you hiding? Why don’t you use this technology yourselves if you know it so well? What will happen to them if they change their own past? They can’t possibly get away with it!”

„I can easily answer your second question: it’s blacklisted. According to our current theories it caused us more problems in the past than it solved. Of course we lack the reference data to know it for sure but there are signs. To be on the safe side we ‘jam’ the channels that we could use to receive messages from the future. We intentionally cover our ears, if you like. Even if we stopped the jamming now we would still be deaf six years ago. About the first one... Well, we’re not hiding anything. We count on Kaname Madoka returning to young enough to make a wish. We also predict that she’ll be willing to take this opportunity. Believe me, you don’t have an idea about the potential she has thanks to Akemi Homura. She can easily prevent the Observers’ invasion and provide us far more energy than we could collect in the last six years and can possibly collect in our remaining time on Earth. Even if she decides to avoid us they will still surely do their best to avoid the invasion. The Observers will be born because you unveiled our presence on Earth so Akemi Homura and Kaname Madoka will be forced to avoid this indiscretion. Therefore we'll profit from their actions.

“And what about the third question...?”, Kyouko grunted. No matter how restrained she was since her plan’s backfire sobered her up now she lost her temper. She circled the alien like a predator circles its prey. “You’re provoking them to cause a time paradox because you yourselves are afraid to!”

“Just for the record, _we are unable to_. The 63487 Linearity Convention stops us from doing so. But you humans haven’t signed the Convention.”

The little white creature nonchalantly ignored the stabbing gazes pointed at him - but, at least, he finally answered Kyouko’s question.

“The two volunteers will use the Device at their own risk. We don’t have any data what happens to those who succeed. The technology has been long known to us but we don’t know about anyone who successfully used it even though it’s a mathematically proven fact that it works. There must have been users in the past, it’s just that their fate is unknown to us. Some of them has probably erased their existences when they forced the Universe reshape its past and future around their actions. Some do probably still exist in closed timelike curves causing their own existence but they’re inaccessible to us. If we cared for the fate of Akemi Homura and Kaname Madoka I’d advise them to aim for this outcome.”

The redhead anxiously listened him. Before her mind’s eyes she tore the Incubator to tiny little pieces but she had long known that it wouldn’t make her feel any better. On the top of that she found their irresponsibility disturbingly familiar.

“So you’re playing with something you don’t know, once again... You’re just like us...”

“This similarity may help our collaboration when you join the interstellar civilizations! You’ve already started to adopt some of our technology, after all...”, he turned his head to face the first human made magical girl of the history.

“Stop here!” This time it had to be Homura who silenced the alien. They sat hand in hand with Madoka, facing their old enemy... their new ally.

“We take the mission. But how do we get back in Kazamino?”

“This time you won’t have to detonate anything. It’ll be our job to cloak you.”


	18. The Road of the Misfortune God

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a similar history to that of chp13-15: a lightning strike ended months of thinking. Originally I had planned to follow the girls for more than a month through a whole twisted timeline until Walpurgisnacht. Then I suddenly chose the most minimalistic alternative plan which covers no more than a few hours and has very few characters. Only four characters got more 'keyboard time' than a few lines: Madoka, Homura, Junko and Mami. Only the four of them has real roles here. Oh, and I found a strange colored flashlight to illuminate various scenes from the series and Rebellion... and some more.
> 
> Temporary Tags: Prepare For Foreseen Consequences, Marvin's Death, Grief Syndrome Mechanics, Mami vs Homu, Schwarzschild Radius, Time War Level Novice
> 
> Mature Tag: It has become a bit gory... About on the level of Rebellion. Possibly a bit more naturalistic, though.
> 
> Music: Requiem for a Dream OST / Lux Aeterna; Touhou 15 OST / The Rabbit has Landed  
> Music for the 17th chapter (I know I'm late!): Marina&The Diamonds - Savages. It's like an answer to Kyubey...
> 
> Giving explanations is one of the most surrealistic moments of time travel.

# The Road of the Misfortune God

_v0.903_

Madoka spaced out at the kitchen table. The fried egg on her plate seemed to hypnotize her but she didn’t even see the yellow disk. She saw the van and the crate in the cargo space, densely written with alien glyphs. They had hidden behind the crate and stayed lying on the floor in the darkness with their fingers intertwined while the others shut the door from the outside.

“Madoka! Finish your breakfast already, you’ll be late from school!”

“Y... Yes, mom!”

She hesitantly picked up a morsel with her chopsticks. She began to chew but didn’t even feel the taste. The flash that had woken her had probably mixed up her senses. Or she might have been half asleep. She swallowed and reached for another piece. She lost the sight of her plate again. The mysterious device towered above her, the machine that had been said to be designed by the other Walter Bishop though it was based on Incubator technology. Then she saw Kyouko’s troubled face as she stared at her.

“Madoka... You know me. I’m the one who dragged you into this madness and you know that you weren’t even the first. Madoka... I would have long deserved it, but as I can’t ask Sayaka... I’d like you to punch me in the face.”

Madoka obeyed. Then she hugged the redhead with watery eyes not caring that she would smudge her face and clothes with blood. Then it was Homura’s turn to hug Kyouko and they said goodbye to Walbey too. Just like they were to leave forever... Even though they were the only ones who would remain the same and, in a sense, bring the end of the world for everyone else.

A last embrace, then Homura resolutely stepped between the metal arms. Madoka followed and held on to her stronger than ever. They couldn’t be sure that it would work. Then came the dazzling flash that felt like six years shoved down her every sense at once. Of course she might have imagined it all.

“What’s wrong, Maroka? Why don’t you eat? Your tummy hurts?”

Her head jerked up, her eyes shot wide open and a few revealing teardrops trickled down her face. Then she eased a little as the pieces fell together. Of course, Takkun was four again in her world too...

Junko raised her brow and glanced at her husband. Tomohisa decided to try to find some mundane explanation to his daughter’s behavior before he’d let himself seriously worry.

“Is my cooking so bad?”, he asked half-joking. “Just tell me what would you like next and I’ll show you the perfect breakfast!”

“Thank you, dad, it’s already perfect... Everything’s so perfect... I’m alive and you’re alive and I can eat your great cooking!”

While Homura had to sit alone in a hospital bed with her soul gem in her hand. Madoka felt it crushingly unfair. She was here in this safe, loving home but Homura had become an outcast again. These were their roles, but...

She gave up the hopeless fight with her tears.

“I’m so sorry, Homura-chan...! You knew that I’m so bad at playing myself... But I’m even worse, I betray you in the very first minute I see them...!”, she sobbed.

Tomohisa’s attempt to find a rational explanation had utterly failed. He exchanged a look with Junko and saw his wife take her phone. Madoka saw it too and gave a startled look at her mother.

“Mom...! What are you doing?”

“I’ll get some time off for the both of us. Then you’ll tell me what you got yourself into.”

In this very moment Madoka’s phone rang.

* * *

This time there was no mistake: it was _that_ ceiling, white and cold and perfectly indifferent. This ceiling had watched her first wake more than a hundred times, never remembering the previous times.

She felt empty, like everything had been taken away from her. The last six years had vanished in an instant, the world that surrounded her was the old familiar world. Cold fear sneaked in her mind: what if she left Madoka in the future that ceased to exist? Then she had really lost everything. Then the last six years had become but a new piece in her vast collection of failures. Then she would have no chance to repeat that path in this new different world. This world wasn’t colliding with another, it wasn’t decaying anymore and there was no mad scientist to come for her help. But she didn’t even aspire to give this world into the hands of those bald men again. She watched her soul gem as a dark splodge appeared in it, then another. She felt dizzy and nauseous. Of course, she couldn’t afford being frightened, especially not in this body. She sighed and typed a very short question in her phone.

“Do you remember?”

She hunched up and waited for the answer, shivering and staring at her soul gem and the multiplying bubbles of darkness in its depths.

“2017.”

The message was just as brief as hers but it brought disproportionately big relief. Homura finally felt strong enough to get up and take action. Just like back then - yet completely differently.

She stepped in front of the mirror. She leaned closer to face her former self. A pale and skinny schoolgirl looked back from the mirror through lavender eyes that had seen so much. Then she noticed the twin braids that weren’t woven by Madoka. She furiously reached for the ribbons to free her tresses from those mocks of braids.

She stood back a little and the picture blurred just the way it used to. She raised her soul gem to her eyes. The new gem flashed and her vision was sharp again, as usual. She had another look at herself. The mirror didn’t lie, she was just as weak as she looked. One single lap around the school’s running track could have completely exhausted her. She couldn’t even think about carrying Madoka out of harm’s way. She still needed to go through her usual preparations before she would be ready for this new cycle.

Even though she would have badly needed it she wasn’t lucky enough to be particularly good at healing magic. She had long realized that it wasn’t wise to leave her heart in the condition she got it back from the doctors. The surgery she had gone through had saved her life but hadn’t made her strong. This frail image of hers had burnt into her every cell so deeply that her healing magic aimed to return her body to this state. So she couldn’t rely on the permanent repairing spell that sufficiently protected the other magical girls. She needed something else so she started to use the methods of normal people, just like their weapons. She spent all the time she could spare through several cycles to learn meditation techniques to make a better diagnosis. Then she moved along to a very specific area of anatomy and surgery. Thirty or forty cycles later she could perform the operation she needed better than her own physician, with her own magical devices and with her eyes closed.

After the surgery she usually went back to her bed to get her muscles in a better shape to be strong enough without transforming to her magical girl form – much stronger than anyone would have expected from such a frail girl. But this cycle was different. Now she knew something she hadn’t known earlier so she had to hurry. She sat down with her soul gem in her hand and conjured up the magical map of the neighborhood. She knew what she was looking for so she had a good chance to find the little glowing dot that marked the place of the passage someone had opened to follow her. And the dot was really there, slowly fading but clearly visible, just like the scar above her heart six years later. Her hand twitched a little then she waved the thought away. Madoka did never mind it and she had more important things to do.

She sneaked along the corridors in pajamas. Then she froze at a particular door. She had messed up so many things in her past, again and again... Yuma, Amy and... she knew now who lived in this ward. She opened the door with her heart in her throat. Even she was surprised at her own nervousness.

“Hi! What’s your name? I saw you in the yard yesterday but I couldn’t talk to you... you’re such a big girl after all. Why are you here in the hospital?”

Homura looked at the child in relief. The little girl whom she found sitting on the edge of the bed with a plastic tray on her lap took the burden of speaking first from her.

“I’m Akemi Homura. You can call me Homura. And I already know who you are, Momoe Nagisa. I’m glad to find you. Why am I here...? I had a heart surgery. And... because I’d like to fix what I messed up so many times.”

“Good for you! Then you can eat as much cheese as you wish...!”, the child exclaimed then she covered her mouth with one hand, a bit startled. It came to her mind that she shouldn’t be happy about someone else’s illness.

“It’s okay.”, Homura smiled. “I’m better now. But what happened yesterday? You know, it was quite a long time ago to me... Long before anything you remember...”

“You’re strange!”, the little girl laughed and swept her hair back from her side. It was just as long as that of Homura and its white and wavy mass had taken up the space on the sheets next to her. She was no longer smiling. “And you can probably go home soon.”

“This afternoon. But I can’t go home, no one needs me there. I’ll stay here in Mitakihara and go to school here. Someone is waiting for me there, someone good and kind. We can come to see you together if you wish. You don’t have to listen to white furry creatures. Actually, you shouldn’t.”

Of course. This was just another cycle. She wanted to become friends with Tomoe Mami and she didn’t like the idea of this child biting off the blonde’s head. So she stayed. She sat next to Nagisa and took her time to talk with her. Then she realized that she should have been in a hurry – if she wasn’t already late. She didn’t have much time left until the last rounds and she still had to take care of that glowing dot on her mental map. It had almost completely faded away but she could find another which moved slowly before her magical senses. It was so different from the witches’ signature that she wouldn’t even have noticed it if she had been hunting normally.

“I’m sorry, Nagisa, I have something important to do. See you!”

Then her eyes found the tray the child put aside.

“May I borrow that knife?”

A little later she stalked an alley not far from the hospital park. She kept staring hard at her soul gem like she was looking for aliens in the dark unfriendly bowels of a spaceship. Sparse blinks meant a faraway target. Quick pulsing warned her to be careful: the tide could easily turn and the hunter would become the prey. She only missed two things: the beeping of the instrument - and some proper weapon.

She hoped she hadn’t already messed up the plan that she was working on, together with Madoka. After finishing her hunt she would have to hurry back to the hospital to sign her leaving papers and fill out another bundle for the school transfer. She transformed to her magical girl dress and prepared to use her shield.

She found her target on a little square surrounded by old high-rise buildings. The man walked slowly with a very small but very heavy briefcase. Homura’s hand instinctively stirred and she vanished just to appear again with her knife at Dr. Jones’ throat. But his surprise didn’t last for more than a second.

“I have bad news for you: your guns have no effect on me. But why would you do any harm to me? If I recall correctly you only want to protect Kaname Madoka.”

The familiar conceited smile made her hand flinch. If she had a proper scalpel instead of Nagisa’s butter knife it would have left a little trail of blood on the scarred skin.

“I have bad news for you: this is not a gun and I’m not the one you’re used to.”, she hissed. “Just look down. We both know that I can kill you if I tear you apart. And I swear I’ll do it, even with my nails, if I have to.”

“Why, some change, at last! I must admit that it was getting boring to stalk you... I’d be happy to shake you off and I guess you feel the same. I have only one problem: if you fail again I’ll have to keep playing this stupid game too. If you think you know me well enough you’re wrong. If anyone can help you out of this time loop, that’s me. I know the enemy you struggle to beat.”

“I still have bad news: Walpurgis doesn’t matter this time. The time and the place will be the same, but this time I hunt for something else. I don’t want you to meddle in my preparations but I want you to be at the usual place on the 30th of April, at 6pm sharp. Prepare like you usually do, we’ll need your passage. And never forget: I sleep with both eyes open.”

Indeed, sometimes she had really been awake for several days in a row. Of course she needed sleep too but the rest of the world could only sense a jerk of those hours in suspended time, when she failed to take the exact same position she left to take a rest. But she had to pay dearly for these stolen hours: these were her worst awakenings with a horribly drained soul gem.

Jones seemed to read her mind and played the Incubator again, perpetually smiling at her.

“Aren’t you a little overconfident, missy...?”

He wanted to say something more but a bullet tore up the pavement right next to them. The two parted with a double jump.

* * *

Tomoe Mami was sitting in the classroom (often referred to as _glassroom_ by the students), waiting for the end of her last lesson. Her thoughts were too occupied with the duties of another life to be really present. Something was in the air. She had been tense all morning. Something at the edge of her senses sent the signals of a grief seed ready to hatch. Something that was so far that she shouldn’t even have felt it.

She tried to contact Kyubey but she could only get evasive answers from the white little creature. He always claimed that he had been watching over magical girls for aeons - yet he didn’t seem to have a clue what was happening this time and he even warned Mami not to check up on the signal. He asked her to look for a certain girl in the school instead, a mysterious teenager who seemed to have the potential to be the strongest magical girl of the century - yet she had somehow managed to stay under his radar, until now.

A distinct flash of magic helped her make a decision. Strange and dark: witch-colored would have been the right expression. The teacher had just finished the lesson, the timing was perfect. Mami outran her classmates as she rushed downstairs, out of the school, into the bushes of the park. When she left on the other side she was already in her magical girl dress. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her and they were far quicker and stronger than they looked.

She conjured up her soul gem to confirm the feeling that had been haunting her since she woke up. The gem indicated a witch nearby, in the direction of the hospital. Of course, these monsters had to appear where they could do the greatest harm... Mami knew that witches looked for weak people in despair to feed on their misery and make them bring even more misfortune on this world.

Her target wasn’t far. The blonde girl shot a ribbon straight up to the roof of the next building and used it to dart up the shiny glass wall, just like she ran on the blue sky itself. She could get a clear view on her opponent from above so she could comfortably plan her strategy.

As she looked down the edge of the roof she almost lost her balance in her surprise. She understood now why the witch felt so strange from the distance. This monster didn’t hide in a maze like any normal witch should but took the shape of a girl and walked among the people. And she didn’t even fake a normal girl. Her outfit was plain and pale compared to Mami’s but there was no mistake: she was in a magical girl dress. Mami couldn’t believe her eyes. She double-checked but nothing changed: the impostor stood before her magical senses in vivid witch color and her victim glimmered with faint magic, the kiss of the witch that controlled him.

Kyubey must have been right, this monster was probably encouraged by the Night of Walpurgis at hand. Mami didn’t hesitate any more. She spread her arms and turned around. When she faced the witch again there were muskets in both her hands. She hopped on the rails, aimed at the witch and fired. She sent down the second bullet in mid-air then summoned more ribbons to slow her fall.

* * *

Jones turned around to disappear in another alley but suddenly everything turned grey around him as he felt the light weight of the girl. Bony hands searched him thoroughly.

“I’ll need it.”, Homura held up the pistol that had just been in his pocket. He saw a familiar blonde magical girl hanging frozen in the air, surrounded by a whole bouquet of muskets. Jones’ surprise turned into gloating.

“This time you two got at each other’s throats quite early...”

Then it was over. The girl let go and the world’s colors returned. He could have watched the duel in real time if he hadn’t chosen to turn around to disappear at last.

Naturally the bullets missed Homura, she dodged every single one of them like no one else could.

“Playtime’s over! This time you won’t get away!”, Mami shouted. A golden net crawled out of the pavement around the dark haired girl and with a flash it caught – the empty air.

Mami saw that it wasn’t so easy to surprise her opponent. It looked like the witch predicted her attacks. Like she was reading her mind. Or... like they had already fought earlier. But if surprise couldn’t help, brute force would. She whirled around again to take over the whole square with her ribbons.

She looked around and was pleased with the result. Every way out was blocked by a web of yellow ribbons like the nest of mythical giant spiders and her black haired target stayed inside.

“Tomoe Mami, what’s gotten into you? Why the hell are we fighting?”, the witch shouted at her.

The blonde answered with another shot. Mami isn’t a spider, the ribbons aren’t sticky, Homura reminded herself. She dodged this bullet too and hopped on the golden path of web around the walls to get behind her opponent. The ribbons weren’t sticky but they formed loops and reached for her feet. She jumped a little too late, a noose caught her ankle and dragged her down. Mami turned around triumphantly, with the end of a ribbon in her hand. Homura knelt on the pavement, swearing quietly.

Something slammed through the magical spiderweb, something heavy and strong enough to break the threads. A familiar white Prius stopped with screeching tires, right between the two girls. Its closest door sprang open.

“Come on, Homura, get in the car!”, Junko shouted at her from behind the wheel. “You’ll have enough time to make big eyes at me later!”

The dark haired girl shook off her surprise and aimed down to shoot through the ribbon that held her ankle then she hopped on the back seat next to Madoka. The pinkette wanted to fall on her neck but her seat belt didn’t let her – but Homura was free.

“You’d better sit down and buckle up!”, Junko warned her. “Madoka said that you can take anything but I’m still sure she wouldn’t want you to get hurt!”

The electric motor squealed and the gasoline engine roared as they retreated from the square. Then the car turned around and they finally ran forward, followed by a bewildered magical girl.

“Kaname-san...”

Homura felt awkward. She had to talk to yet another Junko... though this one was the same she knew - minus her memories of the last six years. The girl instinctively fell back to formal speech like she did at the beginning of every cycle. “How did Kaname-san recognize me...? You shouldn’t remember...”

“Damn if I remember! I’ve just realized that I haven’t even known my own daughter... But when I saw a skinny little chick in this dress and hair and a knife at someone’s throat I knew that it had to be you!”, she laughed and offered a hand above her seat. “Kaname Junko, again. Welcome back in the family! Just don’t try to talk to me like I was my own grandmother!”

Their handshake couldn’t last long. Junko sped through a red light, pedal to the metal, then forced the car into a sharp turn with both hands, leaving black stripes of rubber on the asphalt. The golden brown load that attached herself to the back of the car with a shiny ribbon slammed in a wide curve into a store window but it wasn’t enough to get rid of her. She instantly sprang out of the store and followed them running on the walls above the bystanders’ heads, careful not to cut someone in half with her magical threads. As soon as she could run straight again she fired instantly and hardly missed the front left wheel by a hair’s breadth.

“The hell’s wrong with her?! Madoka, didn’t you say that she was your friend?”

They meandered through the traffic, raced along the road below the overpass from where a Madoka had once dropped a Sayaka, sped through the bridge into a parking lot at the docks in the industrial area. Junko slammed on brakes at the pier almost sending Mami flying into the river. But the magical girl shot a ribbon at the tip of a tower crane and flung onto the top of its cab. She sprang up, stepped out of the dent she made in the roof with one foot, pulled a ribbon out of her hair and rolled it into a spiral in the air before her.

“Reverse! Get out of here, now!”, Homura shouted. Mami called at the same time.

“Tiro Finale!”

Junko let off the gas and stepped on the brakes again as the golden explosion punched a sizable crater into the road behind the car. The rear wheels plopped into the pit and the Prius left trapped on the edge.

“Do you often make such mess? How is it possible that no one knows about you magical girls?”

The thin girl was still confused.

“W-we usually don’t do anything like this... Normally no one sees us fight!”

Mami just stepped off the cab’s roof and landed gracefully in front of the car. Junko sprang out in anger to block the magical girl’s way.

“I don’t know what the hell you want from my daughters but leave them alone! Shouldn’t you chase witches instead?”

Mami stared at her in surprise: this woman was the first adult who knew about witches. But she didn’t possibly know everything given that she was just helping one escape.

“Step aside! One of them is hiding right here, in your car! You’ve probably never had two daughters, you’re just deceived by that monster. But everything will be all right. When you wake up, you won’t remember anything.”

“What monster?! They’re perfectly normal, just have a look at them! But if you lay a finger on them...”

“I... I think I know.”, Homura said close to tears. She had just arrived but Junko had already saved her and Madoka held on her hand in a way that made it clear for their attacker that they belonged together and she would protect Homura with her life. The dark haired girl wasn’t used to such reception. “I’m not normal at all. But, believe me, Tomoe Mami, I’m not a witch. What do you think, is this a grief seed?”

Mami’s eyes widened with surprise as Homura held up the strange, shapeless gem. She didn’t even have to grab her own to feel the magic it radiated.

“I have no idea what it is, but it really can’t be a grief seed... But why does it feel like one?”

“My contract... It wasn’t made with Kyubey.”, Homura answered evasively.

Mami examined Madoka and Junko too and found no sign of the witch’s kiss. The blonde girl was embarrassed. She found a family that included a peculiar magical girl whom she hadn’t recognized even though she should have known her earlier. And the other daughter seemed so gifted that she could even be the one Kyubey had mentioned. And the way Mami had introduced to them, attacking the strange magical girl then chasing the whole family through half of the city... She was in deep blush, her confident facade failed her. She apologized stammering a good deal then she introduced herself, _properly_ this time. But they all seemed to already know her which made the situation even more embarrassing...

“I don’t know how you would explain this rampage to the police but I’m sure that we shouldn’t stay here.”, Junko suggested. “It would be the best to have some sweets and have a talk somewhere. Just help me get the car out of this nice little crater...”

The two magical girls grabbed the back of the Prius and put it back on the road with ease.

“There’s a new creperie near the hospital. There we can talk everything over if you don’t mind.”, Junko said while they all got back in the car.

Homura slapped her forehead in panic.

“The hospital! I’m late! I should have signed my leaving papers! And I didn’t even apply to the school! How can I go to the same class with Madoka?”

“All right, change of plans! We’ll stop by the hospital, set you free and have a nice talk somewhere afterward. Then we’ll give a lift to Tomoe-san and you come with us. I’ve already told Tomohisa that you’ll come to our house for the night. He can’t wait to see the mysterious beauty Madoka kept mentioning.”, Junko winked at her through the mirror. “And you don’t have to worry about the school. You probably know that Kazuko is a good friend of mine. I’ll call her later. I think you can go together with Madoka tomorrow, you can fill those papers later.”

Mami gave Homura a puzzled look.

“Didn’t she say you’re her daughter... Akemi-san...?”

“Wait, Mami-san!”, Madoka cut in. “Actually, she’s not, but she’ll be. She was in hospital for a long time and mom didn’t even know her. But from now on, she’ll live with us.”

“You say that your mom has just picked an unknown orphan in a hospital and adopted her while she already had an own child? You did something great, Kaname-san!”

The two other girls weren’t surprised that the appreciation in her voice was colored by little drops of envy.

“Not exactly.”, Junko laughed. “Homura was found by Madoka. And we can’t even adopt her because her family would surely object, even though I don’t know on what grounds... But Madoka knows her well. She told me how Homura had lived with us for years.”

The blonde girl didn’t understand a thing. Junko watched gloating a little as their guest tried to make at least a little sense of the things she learned. Good, it had been just as difficult for her in the morning.

She saw through the mirror that her “daughters” exchanged a look. They were probably talking without words. They must have been pondering how much of their story they were supposed to tell to Mami. Junko suspected that even her orientation hadn’t been in the two girl’s plans.

“The thing is that it was Homura-chan who saved me from Walpurgis six years ago. We’ve been together since then. We love each other from the bottom of our hearts.”

Mami curiously studied her. She saw lucid eyes and a completely serious face. This girl was so small, so young, so pink... Yet she could hold her head high and confess without blushing that she was in love with another girl. Mami knew that she wouldn’t be able to do the same. But she was sure that Madoka was telling the truth, every time she touched Homura gave her feelings away.

But nothing else she said made any sense. She really didn’t help Mami understand what was happening. She didn’t even want to. Homura had already been in her shoes, she had told enough about it. If they had simply told the truth in Mami’s face she would never have believed them. They needed a bunch of strange details that connected to things the blonde had already known. But above all, they had to intrigue and confuse her.

“Walpurgisnacht... But that’ll be...”

Homura flicked her hair back as theatrically as she could packed inside a car.

“30th of April, 2011, the night of Walpurgis. The witch appears between 6 and 8 pm. It’s far stronger than anything you could have ever seen. And if it isn’t stopped it’ll devastate the most densely populated districts of the city. There’s only one magical girl who can take her on alone and that’s Madoka. I’ve tried roughly a hundred times, that’s how my magic is. I’ve even tried in teams. I’ve tried together with you, with Sakura Kyouko, with Miki Sayaka. We could never defeat her without Madoka - but saving her from becoming a magical girl was the very goal I tried again and again to achieve.

Mami frowned at Kyouko’s mentioning. Truth is often recognized through its unpleasantness. The blonde girl finally began to believe them.

“I understand you... We live dangerous lives. But Kaname-san has just mentioned years. So you’ve succeeded at least once, right? Why are you trying again?”

“Because there was someone who helped me. An outsider. The whole world became aware of us magical girls and it was even worse than we had thought. But we finally know what went wrong so we’ve both come back. Our real enemy’s going to be there at Walpurgisnacht, the one that changed the future. If Madoka can tell her wish there no one can stand in our way anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”, Mami shook her head. “Haven’t you fought the whole time to stop Madoka from being a magical girl...? And if you two still want to use her wish why can’t she make that wish right now?”

“She may be right, Homura-chan!”, Madoka interrupted. “We don’t have to undo that specific fork after all... I’d like better if you wouldn’t suffer so much! And I don’t even understand who would help us later... We’d better choose a different path!”

Her words would have been unintelligible for anyone but Homura but they convinced her. Indeed, if they’d trade their future for that of those two they’d be alone. They would follow their track and get stuck in the same trap from which they had helped their parallels out. But this time they’d be the trapped Goddess and Devil - without the hope of any help.

“All right! Then we go back to our best traditions... Let’s catch Kyubey and face him! I don’t think we can do much but walk about and use some magic here and there. I hope we can lure him out.”

The blonde girl gave Homura a perplexed look.

“Tradition...? Catch Kyubey...? You must have come from a strange future...”

“Stranger than you could imagine. But you were there too. We went on our last mission together.”

“So what do we do, girls? Should we stop to look for the little bastard?”, Junko asked while she pulled over to the slow lane. She wasn’t thrilled with her daughter’s idea but she felt that the girl knew much more than she revealed and didn’t just decide on a whim.

“You seem to be on bad terms with him...”, Mami murmured.

“You’d feel the same in our position.”, Homura answered.

“Yes, mom, it’ll be fine here!”, Madoka pointed at a friendly looking park. They left the main road and stopped at a pathway. The magical girls parted ways to search different streets. Junko waited for the two to leave then she turned to her daughter.

“Madoka! I must admit that you surprised me this morning, but I accept your choice. You have good eyes, Homura is really pretty in her own way and what’s more important, she seems to be a good child, just like you. But never forget that this girl is sick. I’ve tried to get used to the thought that she’ll live with us from now on. That’s why I called her my daughter but I kept an eye on her too and saw how she looked at me. I saw the same big eyes she made when I stopped to get her in the car. Madoka! Homura just can’t wrap her head around the idea that it’s possible for anyone, except you, to care for her. I’m sure that she sticks to you and she’s thankful for anything from you. If it was anyone else I’d be sure that they were just using her, but I believe in you. Still, I’m worried. She’s in a great danger even though you truly love her. You two seem to live dangerous lives and I’m afraid that one day she’ll do something terribly stupid for you. I can only hope that you can save her from herself that day. You said that she has a family but she’d be better off without them. Now I’d like to smack them, one by one. I’m quite sure that she became like this because of them. And I don’t understand the future me. Tell me, Madoka, what happened? Did I fail Homura? Or it was her who did something wrong?”

She just nodded at the sight of Madoka’s tears. There was something wrong with her real daughter too. Of course that long war with the aliens could make a terrible damage in her but Junko felt that there was something more. She waited patiently for Madoka’s answer.

“You’re right in everything, Mom... except that you’ve never done anything wrong to Homura-chan! You two were a true family to her and she had been better until a few days ago... Until six years from now. It’s only our fault that you weren’t there for her...! It’s only our fault that that other enemy from the future arrived. They’re from much-much farther than us. I’m stupid to tell you but you’ll keep quiet about it, right, mom? One day they simply appeared everywhere and we couldn’t even get back in the city... When we finally got home we found you all, even Takkun, lying on the bathroom’s floor... with bullets in your heads!”

Madoka fell silent and buried her face in Junko’s blazer, shaking with sobs all over. Homura got back in this very moment, with empty hands. She glanced at mother and daughter hugging and kept quiet, only her eyes got shinier. She felt like a trespasser. She took a hesitant step backward but Junko stopped her with a wave of her hand and collected her in her arms, next to Madoka. She gently placed her hand on the girl’s head and sadly looked into the lavender eyes she found so similar to her own.

“I think I begin to understand you. How many times were you left alone, again and again...?”

Junko was a good leader. She didn’t only care for her team but she was used to quickly adapt to new circumstances. This day had become her proof. She used to be the mother of a normal and healthy teenage girl – and, suddenly, she had two broken time travelers under her wings. She didn’t expect it to be easy with these children but she was resolved to do her best, together with Tomohisa. There was only one thought she couldn’t wrap her head around – that the girls in her arms were her own orphans... She could only hope that it didn’t mean the inevitable end of their lives within a mere six years.

Mami didn’t wait too long to arrive. She wasn’t alone: she came with Kyubey on her shoulder. The blonde stopped when she saw the two girls cry on Junko’s shoulders but the alien was unmoved. It hopped down to the ground and nonchalantly walked behind them with its signature smile on its muzzle. Junko couldn’t see anything but the girls felt the creature’s presence and turned around. From the way they wiped their eyes Junko suspected what they saw and she unwittingly gritted her teeth. She was standing within an arm’s length from the culprit behind her daughters’ suffering and she couldn’t even give it a stabbing glare!

“Madoka, Mami told me why you’re looking for me. If you make a contract with me you can be the strongest magical girl of the last thousand years. If you accept a life of fighting against witches I‘ll grant you a wish. With your potential it can be anything you can imagine. If you know what that wish would be just tell me and we can make the contract right now.”, the three girls heard Kyubey’s enthusiastic mental ‘voice’.

“That’s right. I know what’s the wish that’s worth trading my life and soul for! I wish to erase every w...”

But she couldn’t finish. She covered her mouth and glanced around in panic. Mami, Homura, Junko... they were all standing around, unarmed and unprepared. But Kyubey laid stretched on the sidewalk, full of bullet holes.

“I... I didn’t...”, Homura mumbled in deep blush, raising her empty hands.

No one but Madoka understood why she said it – but everyone knew that she was telling the truth.

Junko didn’t waste their time. She grabbed the three shocked girls at once and steered them to the car.

“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here! Madoka, what should we know about your _other_ enemy?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it, Homura-chan? We can tell it to mom...”

Homura just nodded as they hopped inside. Junko started the car and they merged the highway that crossed the downtown.

“They’re people... from the future. For some reason they came back to our time and they claimed the whole world. They manipulate time just like Homura-chan and they even calculate the future. I’m sure that they’re already waiting for us!”

“Then we’re going in the best possible direction. Calculate this, bastards!”, Junko answered in her grimmest tone.

“Why? Where are we going?”

“I have no idea!”

Then she steadied the car and summarized what she had heard.

“So they’re time travelers and you want to get in their way, in their own past. Don’t say that you’re surprised! The only thing I don’t understand is why they killed the alien instead of you. There’s a lot of him but only two of you!”

“I think they’re afraid of what I’d do if they killed Madoka. There must be only one thing they fear even more and that’s what would happen if they killed me. They probably want us to play along until Walpurgisnacht. They want me to move in to Madoka’s room, to go to school with her, to fight for her, to save her. And to disclose the truth about magical girls!”, Homura finished gritting her teeth.

“Akemi-san!”, Mami began. “If it’s true then nothing but Kaname-san’s wish can stop them! But what should we do now that they’ve shot Kyubey?!”

“We’ll have to find him again!”, Madoka replied. “He can’t be too far. Mami-san, it’s not that easy to kill an Incubator. First, we need a safe place without Observers where we could meet him!”

The two other girls had the same ready answer.

“A witch’s maze!”

“All right, a maze then. Mami-san, can you sense any witch nearby?”

The blonde girl conjured up her soul gem and held it up with closed eyes.

“We’re out of luck. There are no witches in my range, not even at the most dangerous places. Not even a loose familiar. The only anomaly I sense is Akemi-san. Oh... Akemi-san, you still haven’t told me why your soul gem radiates like a grief seed!”

Homura bit her lip. She looked at Mami, then at Madoka.

“Poor Tomoe Mami... You can’t even imagine it’s how easy for us to get into a witch’s maze...”

The car suddenly came to a halt. Only the seat belts kept them from hitting the front seats or the windscreen.

“Well, Homura, I don’t think they’d like you two to play schoolgirls...”, Junko said from the front seat.

A roadblock obstructed their way. They saw police cars, a barbed-wire fence and an armed squad in more than up-to-date uniforms that shouldn’t have existed for six more years. Suspicious gas tanks were standing behind the roadblock and the ominous Observers walked among them in their hats and suits, giving orders to their squad. A similar barricade appeared from thin air behind the Prius.

Then everything froze. Junko, Mami and the whole army outside became parts of a black and white still image before Madoka’s eyes. Homura sat there holding her shoulder, fixing her gaze on hers.

“Madoka... Please, forgive me. We can’t run away anymore, there’s nowhere to. They’d may leave me alone in the next world but...”, she wiped her eyes with her other hand, “I’ve had enough. I won’t go anywhere without you! Madoka... I’ll betray you in the end... to let you walk forward. I beg you, please realize without me what we’ve come for!”

Her fingers clenched the grip of the pistol. She raised the barrel to her temple with a trembling hand. Her other hand was about to let go of the pinkette’s shoulder but Madoka got a firm grip on it.

“I promise I’ll come back for you. And when I do, hold on to me like I did when we came back here! I couldn’t make it out there, all alone... I need you, Homura-chan!”, Madoka sniffed. The world looked to ripple before her eyes. She blinked to clear her vision while her lips touched Homura’s. The two girls connected in a last kiss.

Then they parted and the world exploded. The ringing in Madoka’s ears devoured every other sound. Blood and brains and tufts of black hair covered the ceiling, the back seat, the windows.

Junko sprang up and leaned over her seat to shout at Homura then she grabbed her and started to shake her by the shoulders. The girl just sat still in her stainless funeral dress, hands laid in her lap, holding her soul gem. She looked back at Junko with a faint grateful smile and a gruesome bloody crater in her head. Even Madoka felt the slap Homura received: she began to make sounds out through the ringing.

“I didn’t look for this happiness in the past... But thank you for worrying, Junko-san...”, Homura replied in a dreamy tone like she spoke from another world. The horrible wound that would have instantly killed any normal human began to heal right before their eyes while darkness consumed the deep purple gem in the same terrifying pace. Then the stone cracked and the gleam faded from the lavender eyes.

Mami saw the gem evaporate into trails of black smoke and escape, wriggling through the cracks of the doors. Mami felt a lump in her throat. She opened the door with shaking hands to run at their mysterious enemy – but Madoka stopped her.

“You may forget about them, Mami-san.”, she said with a sad, crooked smile. “I’ve already seen Homura-chan like this. They don’t stand a chance within the Schwarzschild radius. And it’ll be really big this time.”

She told it like she was proud of something... or someone. The blonde girl wished not to understand what was happening. These two were genuine lunatics, worse than she had imagined, and they just had made something terrible happen, something she had suspected for a good while but she had always been afraid of the devastating certainty.

The houses seemed to tilt around them and the sky turned rainbow. The glass panes exploded and an endless stream of birds poured through the broken windows to gather over the road in a wailing maelstrom. A grotesque army marched through the gateways, hundreds of braided and bespectacled tin soldiers in Homura’s magical girl dress.

The first line knelt down and took aim. The soldiers of the second line raised their rifles too. The barrage knocked over and ruptured the police cars and the gas tanks. Yellow mist covered the barricade. Madoka watched mesmerized as two familiar dolls banged an Observer’s head against the pavement until the amber gas solidified around him. Then the dolls stood up, flashed their pointy teeth in a wide grin and bowed.

“Kaname-san... How long have you known?”, the blonde girl asked.

“Since the day I met Homura-chan.”, Madoka answered while she laid the dead girl’s body on the back seat and closed her eyes.

Someone knocked. A doll with spiky blue hair was standing outside, grinning and dangling Kyubey behind the window.

“I don’t understand why you care about that empty shell.”, the Incubator remarked without the slightest sign of fear, like everything happened as he had planned. “The entity that used to be Akemi Homura is out here now. Our measurements show that the whole city is her labyrinth now.”

“I know, Kyubey.”, Madoka answered.

“If you still want to be a magical girl I can help you. You’ll just have to make a wish.”

“Mom, thank you for everything you did for us. We will meet again. See you, Mami-san!”

Madoka hugged Junko and Mami through the backrests. Then she stepped out of the car, straightened and took a deep breath.


	19. Highly Responsive to Prayers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the end. For now. This is a huge world, with trillions of nooks and crannies.
> 
> Hashtag: White Tulip, Hardly Hidden

# Highly Responsive to Prayers

_v0.9_

[Boston, Massachusetts, USA, October 2011]

Olivia shivered with cold as she stepped in the laboratory. She left her umbrella at the door and reached into her coat’s inner pocket for a closed envelope while she stepped to the old scientist.

“What’s this?”, Walter asked.

“I have no idea! I was stopped by two young girls on the street. I had never seen them before. They asked me to give it to Walter Bishop. I don’t know how they knew that I know you. Then they simply vanished while I was reading the direction.”

Walter pondered over the writing. From Madoka and Homura with love.

“Madoka, Homura... It feels like it should ring a bell, but... I don’t know.”

He clumsily opened the envelope, too confused to do it at once. “Those removed pieces of my brain, they may know...”

The old scientist drew a single sheet of paper from its cover.

“I’m sure that they’re those girls, they were in school uniforms though. But this drawing won’t really help to find them...”, Olivia remarked.

Dr Bishop wiped his eyes with a shaking hand and murmured something Olivia couldn’t understand.

“Walter, are you okay?”

The old scientist didn’t even look at her. He eyed the drawing in a trance.

“Thank you, my God!”

The two girls were standing there, hand in hand, one of them holding out a white tulip.


End file.
